


A Knight's True Soul

by penumbria



Series: Visions of My Soul [3]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Discussions of Child Prostitution, Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 06:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7704730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penumbria/pseuds/penumbria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Hart met Eggsy Unwin when Eggsy was a child. Harry never saw a vision of his soul mate again. Eggsy never saw a vision at all, he just felt a pull that led to the Savile Row area of London once he reached puberty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Harry Hart

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of my entry to the 2015-2016 Multi-Fandom Extreme Big Bang. I didn't finish the goal but this story was completed. Thanks to my beta lanalucy. The banner art was created by me.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Kingsman and I make no money from this. The only thing I own is the story I wrote and the soul mate concept I created.

 

_ 1960 to 1975, England _

 

Philip Hart met and married Melissa Hargrove in 1960. They were not soul mates and the marriage was very much a dynastic one, though arranged by the couple themselves rather than their families. Philip Hart was a relatively wealthy, though untitled, landowner from Kent. Melissa Hargrove’s family was old money, also untitled, that had fallen on hard times after the second World War. The marriage was made in blue blood and pocketbooks, but the couple and their families were pleased with the choice.

It wasn’t unusual, even in lower class unions, for the spouses not to be soul mates. Considering that worldwide the percentage of same gender soulmates was near twenty percent, and that regardless of the numbers, the prejudice against not marrying the opposite gender to procreate,and thus increasing the population, was alive and well, it was no wonder. As reproductive technology was becoming increasingly advanced and businesses were cropping up to pair people with other than their mates, to reproduce or to pair sets of same sex couples up to have children without needing to have sex, the stigmas against homosexual soul mate relationships, where the couple had no children, were slowly decreasing. But as with any attitude that had been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, it was at times glacially slow with occasional bursts of violence and legislation pushing backward.

Philip never told anyone what he saw in his visions of his mate. Some of the family speculated it was a man, others were insistent his mate had died and so there was a generation gap. Melissa believed Philip had met his mate before they reached puberty and so had had no clues other than the warmth and pull to go on to find them.

Melissa’s own situation was fairly standard for girls in her social class. From the visions she had once a year for ten minutes where she saw through her soul mate’s eyes on the day of their conception, she knew her mate was a man. But he was  _ not _ of her class. If he had been slightly lower on the scale, prosperous but not rich, or nouveau riche, it would have been do-able. But her mate was in the army. And not even an officer. He was a basic soldier. And when she saw visions of him in his natural habitat, and with his family, they were working class at best, living in estate housing. 

Melissa had known from the beginning that unless she was willing to give up everything to be with him, she would not marry her mate. Her family would have never approved a relationship such as that, regardless of what King Edward VIII had done a few decades previously. It just wasn’t done. It was unthinkable. So she put it out of her mind and hoped the time never came where she accidentally crossed his path, as it would cause untold difficulties, especially if she hadn’t yet had a child. Everyone knew once one met their soul mate, one could no longer be fertile with another. 

So, Melissa married Philip and even though neither was deliriously happy, they were both content. They didn’t hate one another but they didn’t love one another either. They were polite and very stiff upper lip stereotypical British, in public and in private. It made for a somewhat cold home but not an unbearable one.

The marriage of Philip and Melissa quickly bore the fruit it was designed to, and Melissa gave birth to a son in July 1961, just over a year after the wedding. The boy was given the name of Henry Alistair Hart, after both of their fathers, Henry for the Harts (a name sprinkled through the family tree for the past two hundred years) and Alistair for the Hargroves.

Henry, quickly shortened to Harry in true British fashion, was a quiet child. He rarely got into mischief and enjoyed wandering the estate gardens and grounds, finding interesting flowers and leaves and other outdoor things and bringing them home to research what they were. 

Melissa and Philip cared about their son, an only child in their cool marriage, but the only way they truly knew to express it was to give him things their wealth easily provided. Harry had excellent nursemaids and eventually a governess. He learned to ride a horse after being gifted with a pony for his fourth birthday. He had the most expensive clothes they could give him, fashionable and stuffy at the same time, including several suits that he wore for his parents’ numerous parties. And when Harry turned seven, his governess was fired, his latest nursemaid retired, and he was sent off to boarding school.

Bedford School was at first a difficult place for the young boy, but he swiftly settled in and made friends, or at least was friendly with, his dorm mates. He excelled in his classes, and often advanced to an older class, as his governess had simply taught to his level and not worried about the grade level of the material he could understand. Harry learned to love sports and over his time at Bedford, he made a place for himself on the rugby teams, the cricket teams, the fencing teams, and the rowing teams. 

Bedford was also the first place Harry truly learned more than the mythology of soulmates.

Harry was just seven years old when he first started attending the boarding school, much too early for soul mates to make much of an impact on his life personally. When one was born into the circles of society Harry was born into, one often didn’t meet many soul mate pairs. 

Harry’s governess had taught him the mythology, of course. He had read the stories of Zeus and the other ancient gods and how they had been jealous of humans and split them in two, which he found in Plato. He read the English translations, though he'd been working on learning Latin and Greek when his governess had been fired. He had been taught that humans, according to myth, had once had four arms, four legs, and one head made of two faces. He knew the ancient peoples believed that after being cursed by the gods, they had to find the other half of their soul to be whole. 

But the young boy thought it was all bedtime stories and savages from olden times who didn’t understand science and things. It wasn’t until he began his classes at Bedford that he learned the truth: while the idea of four arms, four legs and heads with two faces might be fiction, along with the curse of the gods (though that is strongly debated), the idea of soul mates isn’t just a romantic ideal. 

There was an entire class taught every year on advancing levels that made it clear that soul mates were real. Harry learned in his first class more about the mythology, and the ongoing debates about the existence of Zeus or God or Satan, causing the current issue with how one found one’s mate. He read stories (dumbed down to a child’s level) about soul mates throughout history and how their searches for their mates, chance meetings between mates, or the lack thereof had impacted history. 

As he grew older, the classes became more focused on the actual mechanism of the soulmate bond and how it manifested in life. Harry learned puberty was key. Puberty, as defined by when he had his first wet dream or awake ejaculation producing actual sperm, would trigger his visions. Once he was considered adult by those standards, he would have ten minute visions every year on his mate’s conception date. He would lose control of his body and see what was happening through his mate’s eyes.

It was a disturbing thought to the boy. He prided himself on his control. His parents had always praised him for his lack of temper or outbursts when he was young, so he strived to keep it that way. It wasn’t that Harry didn’t have emotions or even that he didn't show them. He simply kept them to the correct time, place, and level. A joyful yell when one made a goal in rugby was acceptable but not when one made a touch in fencing or received an outstanding test mark. 

The idea that he would have no control over his body for ten whole minutes once a year was disconcerting. He understood he would be stationary. His body wouldn’t do anything without him, it wouldn't be like sleepwalking. And it happened to everyone. It was how you got clues to where your soulmate was, what they did, their age, an idea of a range for their birthday, and if you were lucky, a name or something to indicate who they were. 

Harry still wasn’t sure he was willing to do this, though he was smart enough to realize he didn’t actually have a choice. When he reached the magic age, his body would give him a week’s worth of warnings and then the first vision. Though many of his classmates were looking forward to it, Harry would rather not. Especially since he knew now that his parents weren’t mates and it was likely they would want him to marry as they did - for money and property and family reasons - not for something as nebulous as love.

Then Harry turned fourteen and came into puberty properly. 

\---

_ 1975, Bedford School, England _

Harry reclined on the red leather chaise lounge in the small retiring room in the medical wing of Bedford School. The medical wing had three floors, the top floor devoted entirely to small rooms such as this. They were all seven feet deep by seven feet wide, furnished with a single chaise lounge and a small table piled with several blankets and a few pillows. The walls were a dark cherry wood paneling with a single oculus window cut high into the exterior wall. There were two sconces, gold with white flower-like domes on either side of the window though at a lower height. The rooms were designed to comfort those in vision trances without jarring them upon waking.

The past week had been what Harry considered a personal hell. He understood the biology, both from classes and from his fellow yearmates, most of whom had already gone through the process. Harry was a late bloomer. He had actually started to hope he wouldn’t enter into puberty until he was in his late teens - anything to put off the utter horror of this process. 

However, he had not been that lucky. Two months after his fourteenth birthday he had woken up sticky from a wet dream for the first time. Then three months and sixteen days later, his body began to lead up to the first vision. He had been sitting in the cafeteria for dinner and suddenly began to feel increasingly hot. The sensation began at his heart and spread throughout his body, the discomfort increasing quickly. 

After that first horrific ten minutes, he had made sure to go to a retiring room for the first half hour of dinner time so he would be alone and not teased about his approaching trance. This was actually encouraged by the professors, as it would enable the newly awakened to get familiar with and comfortable in the retiring rooms before they had their first vision. 

And now, Harry reclined in the now familiar room, massaging the fingers that had been tingling uncomfortably for at least the past twenty-eight minutes. He knew this meant the vision would start momentarily. Tingling in the extremities was nature’s way of warning that a vision trance was approaching, to enable one to get to a safe place to fall into the trance. Just as the hot flashes were nature’s way of warning a first timer the new experience would soon occur.

Harry tensed and laid back, staring at the ceiling with gritted teeth, wishing he was not about to lose control over himself. Then suddenly, it happened. Rather than the wood panelled ceiling above the chaise lounge, Harry was seeing a hand twisting a cuff link set into a white dress shirt under what seemed to be a tuxedo arm.

After a few moments, the eyes looked up and Harry saw a beautiful blonde woman in a sparkling wedding dress walking toward him. She was on the arm of an older man, white-haired, with a distinctive mustache. They reached the area near Harry (so it seemed to him) and the eyes turned to the front, and Harry saw the woman escorted to a tall man with dark red hair. The older man lifted the bride’s veil out of the way and stepped back, allowing her to join hands with her groom. Harry watched the wedding ceremony he couldn’t hear, an unknown passenger for this lovely occasion. 

The ceremony was short. There was no sermon, no overly religious trappings, simply what seemed to be an exchange of vows and rings and a blessing by the officiant. Harry couldn’t hear what was being said - all visions  _ were  _ just that, vision only - but he had good observational skills. It was an odd sensation but Harry was actually enjoying trying to memorize everything he was seeing so he could interpret it later.

Then the couple turned toward the watchers and bowed their heads. The eyes Harry was seeing through also looked down, and Harry saw a lovely pair of shined Oxfords on his mate’s feet. He suspected his mate had his eyes closed for a prayer but eyelids didn’t count as obstructions for the sake of this vision trance, everyone knew that. As long as the eyeball itself was in the socket, the vision showed what was in front of it, beyond the body limits. 

The eyes raised again and for the first time, Harry saw the newly wedded couple look at one another. Previously they were angled so they couldn’t both be seen but now - now Harry saw the almost luminous quality to their smiles, the shine in their eyes that wasn’t caused by tears. They practically radiated peace and happiness and -  _ love. This must be what love looks like _ , Harry thought, suddenly wistful for all he had never known or thought worthwhile. 

As the eyes saw the couple reach for one another to kiss, Harry found himself seeing the ceiling of the retiring room once more and was overcome with longing, feeling a hollow emptiness inside himself he had never before been able to recognize or acknowledge. It was the hole in his soul his soul mate belonged in. 

The stoic teen rolled to his side, buried his face in the back of the chaise and burst into tears, finally believing in the idea of soul mates and wanting,  _ needing _ , to find his own.

\---

_ 1986, England _

Harry Hart sat in a booth by himself in a dingy pub a bit off the beaten track, drinking from his pint of Guinness. The lighting was dim and the few other patrons were as little interested in socializing as Harry himself. He had a decision to make and it had been preying on his mind increasingly over the past year.

Harry had joined the Royal Marines as an officer candidate right out of Bedford School. He had taken his A Levels and done exceptionally well, but had decided against going to university. Over the years, through visions, he had seen his mate leave school and join the army. It had sparked a sense of patriotism in the younger man he had never truly experienced before. But he had looked within himself and known he didn’t just want to be a shadow of his mate. 

Harry Hart was his own man. But to be inspired by the other half of his soul,  _ that  _ he found acceptable. Over the years, after each vision, Harry had realized he was often influenced by what he saw. After a vision in which his mate was watching a revival of My Fair Lady at a cinema, Harry had found himself more interested in theater and musicals and romantic movies. He began going to the cinema to see these, both showings of older movies and the newer releases. 

Another vision had shown his mate playing the piano. Harry couldn’t hear the music that must have been flowing through the room his mate was in but he could tell that it was more than just a chore, a lesson, or a class. His mate had been totally immersed in what he was doing and there had been no hesitation in his playing, no skipping or starting over, just continual flowing movement. And no sheet music. Harry took up piano lessons within the next week, finding his focus more on jazz and blues than the classical or any type of rock and roll. And he loved playing but as he settled into his love of jazz and music, he found himself drawn to another instrument and taught himself to play the saxophone. 

But now, Harry was twenty-five years old and his eighth year of service was ending soon and he needed to decide whether he wanted to make the Royal Marines his life’s career. He was a Captain, had been for three years, and enjoyed his work; the danger when deployed, the control of his squad, the discipline. 

His mate was still in the army and Harry knew he was at least three years older, based on when he'd left school. It could even be four years, but statistics put it at three. Unless there was a death and rebirth involved in the equation, soul mates were rarely more than three years apart in age.

So, seemingly, Harry’s other half was a career army officer now. But Harry wasn’t sure that was what he wanted for the rest of his life. While he loved the Royal Marines, he didn’t feel a call to go further. But he didn’t know what else to do with his life. He only knew he didn’t want to just live on his inheritances and be a gentleman landowner. 

After his parents’ deaths in a plane accident four years before, Harry had inherited everything from both sides of the family, his grandparents having long since been deceased and both his mother and father being only children. He had taken his bereavement leave to hire good managers to control the fortune and the land. He had no interest whatsoever in doing the tasks himself. He would rather eat his own gun.

But other than those two options, what he could do  that would leave him fulfilled and happy, he couldn’t fathom. Thus, his current solitude and Guinness. His time was running out to make the decision on continuing his enlistment or declining and becoming a civilian once more.

As the uniformed young man drank his worries down with his stout, the seat opposite him was suddenly filled. Harry looked up and gazed at the man with a small frown. There were plenty of open seats in the pub. Even all but one of the other booths were available. And yet this gentleman had sat opposite him. Harry tensed, wary about the oddity but ready for action, as he had been trained.

The blond man smiled lightly as he laid his arms on the table, spread wide, showing he had no weapon in hand. The man was clearly comfortable in their surroundings although he looked out of place. The pub was one that usually catered to marines and the middle class workers in the area. It wasn’t a low class dive but neither was it a high class elite establishment and this new man in his obviously bespoke suit stood out like a sore thumb.

“Can I help you?” asked Harry, his head tilted slightly to the right as his leg slid to the side, ready to bolt from the confines of the booth.

The blond smiled again, wider, and winked. “On the contrary, Captain Henry “Harry” Alistair Hart. I’m here to help you.”

Harry tensed further and sat up straighter. He was in uniform so his rank was obvious but not the rest. “How do you know my name?”

The other man sat back, relaxed against the backrest of the booth, seemingly not at all concerned about the deadly soldier opposite him. “I know quite a bit about you, Captain. Born in 1961 to Philip and Melissa Hart, home schooled by a governess until age seven when you began attending Bedford School, advanced classes from the very start and excellent grades but never described as anything close to a swot by either your fellow students or the professors. Captain of the rugby and rowing teams by the age of fifteen, National Team in fencing and could have gone to the Olympics if you chose. No close friendships but not a loner. Graduated with honors and absolute aces on the A Levels. Chose to ignore offers from various universities and instead went directly into the Royal Marines as an officer candidate. Received the King’s Badge at the end of training, the most outstanding recruit your trainers had seen in nearly a decade. Served with distinction since age seventeen, receiving the Distinguished Service Order in 1982 for your service above and beyond during the Falklands. Awarded the George Medal in 1983 for entering a burning factory five times to rescue trapped workers, receiving second degree burns in the process. Very impressive record, indeed, Captain.”

Harry had tensed more and more as the other man had revealed the depths of his knowledge. “You know a great deal about me, sir. Might I at least have the name of my - stalker?”

The blond laughed. “Cheeky. My name is Reginald Forth. And I have an offer for you. I know your eight years are over very soon and I think you might be a very good fit for my organization. We appreciate people like you, Captain. Think about it.” 

With those last words, the man stood, straightening his suit jacket and walking away. Harry looked down at his Guinness and saw a business card had at some point been placed under the pint glass. 

_ Kingsman Tailors _

_ Savile Row, London _

Tailors? The suit fit but Harry didn’t. That man was no more a tailor than Harry was a monkey. But it might be the answer he had come to the pub hoping to find. The universe provided. 

\--

_ 1989, Kingsman HQ, England _

Harry lay on his bed in the quarters assigned to him in the Kingsman HQ mansion and placed his hands behind his head, fingers interlocked. His gaze took in the relatively familiar details of the white painted ceiling. He had been Agent Galahad for three years and had saved the world, or at least parts of it, over half a dozen times. It amazed Harry how many megalomaniacs there were in the world, men and women who wanted to control the world (or parts of it) and didn’t care who got hurt as long as they were in control. Drugs, guns, technology, even good old fashioned swords once; Agent Galahad had stopped it all.

But now, Harry was waiting for his yearly vision. Kingsman agents were actually expected to still have them though the average in the general population had most people meeting their mates by their mid-twenties. Most agents never did find their other half. It wasn’t forbidden. If you found your mate, you weren’t fired, but it did mean the agency was no longer your first priority. It was why candidates who were on record as having found and bonded with their soul mate were not put forward for training. 

When he had first come to Kingsman after being recruited by Agent Tristan, Harry had hoped to use the information, scanty as it was, together with Kingsman resources, to find his mate at last. But agents were not just discouraged from such a thing, it was outright forbidden. And when you were inducted into your seat at the table, one of the intake forms was a detailed description of when your visions occurred, both the time of year and what year they had begun. The agency couldn’t force you to disclose details of what was seen in the visions, that was one of the world’s highest laws, but they still did their best to control their agent’s mate searches.

This desire for control was what had led to Harry being in his Kingsman HQ quarters rather than at home in his end of mews house or on a mission. All field agents were grounded for two weeks before their anticipated vison date and for three days after. And all agents needed to be in a Kingsman approved location when the visions occurred. According to the rulebook, this was to protect the agents during their visions (and the grounding from missions made sense there) but it was actually to keep the agents from rushing out to find the location of the vision during the time the mate would likely still be there.

Harry didn’t mind much. He still desperately wanted to find his mate, but every vision showed his mate either in the field (where Harry couldn’t get to him) or in a locale that could be anywhere (like a movie theater or a kitchen in a flat). As a matter of fact, in his last vision before joining Kingsman, Harry had seen what he hoped was his mate paying some kind of bet. The other man had spent those ten minutes in a small kitchen making six different recipes that featured pickles. It had been hilarious but not at all helpful in locating the man. (But it had led to Harry’s name for the dog gained during Kingsman training.)

Harry always hoped to find his mate looking in the mirror or at paperwork with his name on it during a vision but had never been that lucky. He hoped that someday one of them would see that elusive clue that led them to one another. But as he got older, his certainties fled and became more of a dream, less tangible, and he let go of some of his romanticism. The same romanticism had led to Harry being nicknamed Galahad (ironically enough) by the men in his unit in the army, for the virgin knight in the Arthurian tales. Until joining Kingsman, Harry had been determined to save himself for his mate but with honeypot missions and just general life lessons of a spy, that ideal fell by the wayside and Harry had long since lost that virginity.

Harry sighed as he flexed his toes against the tingling and discomfort of the vision trance warning. He understood the reasoning behind the biology of it but it was still most annoying to endure when you were in place to safely start the trance and your body’s warning system still activated.

Then his view changed and Harry fell into shock and horror at what he beheld in his vision trance. There was no battlefield, no kitchen, no movie theater or street or classroom. All that Harry beheld for the full ten minutes was swirling, tumbling colors, shades of grey and black, like the most horrific of storm clouds. 

From his first glimpse, Harry had known what it meant. Everyone was taught the oddities of vision trances. The swirling greys and blacks were a system showing your soul mate was dead. If a mate died before meeting, the vision told the soul in the trance by showing the mourning colors. Once the mate was reborn the vision of swirling colors would remain but turn to bright shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and purple, until normal visions resumed once the reborn mate attained puberty.

Harry was crushed. He was twenty-eight years old and his soul mate had died sometime in the past year. And, based on statistics, the soul would be reborn within the next three years. Until that babe was born, Harry would see these mourning visions, then the timing would change. It was highly unlikely the new child would be conceived at the same time as his former mate. Harry would have no way, until the warnings happened, to know  _ when  _ his new vision trance would be.

When the trance finally ended, Harry rolled over in bed, much as he had done following his very first vision, and holding his pillow as a lifeline, he wept. He wept for the life of the man he had never met, he wept for the life he would now never know, the stories he could never share of those visions, the bonding he would now be without for at least a decade and a half more. Harry wept until his tears ran dry.

\---

Harry Hart sat slumped in a fine leather chair in the den of Kingsman HQ. In his hand, he held a snifter of fine brandy. In the chairs around him were his three good friends in the agency: his mentor, Agent Tristan, more familiarly known as Reginald Forth, who had proposed him as Galahad; Agent Morien, familiarly Geoffrey Gordon, a fellow recruit he had actually known during Royal Marine training and who worked in the tech and handler division rather than as a field agent; and Agent Percival, familiarly Percy Harrison IV, a fellow field agent, whose trials had brought him to the agency after Harry had been there for a year. 

All three were commiserating with him over his loss. Reginald actually understood, as his own soul mate had died the year before he had met Harry. Geoff, too, had an oddly sad story. He had never seen an actual true vision. His visions were either the greyed out mourning colors or the rainbow celebration colors of a reborn mate. Since he had attained puberty, he had seen the mourning colors five times. His mate had never made it to puberty before dying, over and over. 

“The last time,” Geoff confided to them as they joined Harry in his mourning toasts, “was two months ago. The grey and black. My mate be cursed, I think. Never ta live ta see their own vision of me. Or mebbe I be the one cursed and it impacts them. I dinnae know.”

The four men raised their glasses, not even remotely for the first time, “To soul mates!” cried Percival, the only one whose story wasn’t tragic, just lonely so far. The others nodded, echoed the call, “Soul mates!” and swallowed the aged brandy.

As the men each contemplated their romantic lives, or rather their lack thereof, another agent entered the room and gazed at them with disapproval. “Honestly, drinking this early in the afternoon is not the mark of a proper Kingsman agent, gentlemen.”

The men turned to glare balefully at the newcomer. “We’re toasting, Kay.”

“It doesn't matter what you call it, you’re getting drunk at one in the afternoon. And, Galahad, shouldn't you be in seclusion?”

Reginald turned to the disapproving agent and rolled his eyes, “Harry is out of seclusion and his vision is the very reason we are toasting, Chester. Not that it is really any of your business.”

“You’re toasting your vision, and not in a celebratory tone, Galahad? I suppose that means you didn’t see something that will lead you to them.” The older agent stood there with an intent look upon his face before it cleared. “I see, you had a mourning trance. Lucky. Soul mates really aren’t good for people in our business or of our status, Galahad. I’m happy for you, but do try not to get falling down drunk. It isn’t a good example for the newer agents.”

With that, Chester King, Agent Kay, left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. Percival sighed, “That man is so pretentious. Classist bastard. I’ve heard he takes vacation days during his conception window so he can be somewhere doing things that won’t have a chance of letting his mate find him. Because his mate isn’t high class enough for him based on his own visions.”

Geoff nodded, “Tisn’t a secret. Kay doesn’t want his mate. And for more reasons than class. He’s not just a classist, he’s also a homophobe and a racist, ya know. Shame he’s in the running fer the next Arthur.”

The others nodded their agreement as they continued to sip their brandies, supporting each other in their silent presence.

\---

_ 1993, England _

Harry strolled nonchalantly into the tech department and approached his old friend, now second in command of all of the handlers. Looking over Morien’s shoulder, he could see the man was prepping for upcoming missions rather than being live as a handler at the moment.

“Good evening, Geoff.”

The Scot shot him a look. “Harry.”

“Are you at a pausing spot perchance? I thought I’d go for a pint. Maybe you’d like to come? I’d ask Percival but he’s in Italy right now.” Harry very carefully brushed nonexistent lint from the arm of his suit.

The wily Scot recognized the other man needed to talk but wanted to be in private. “Give me ten minutes, I’ll meet you at the tube.”

Harry nodded and wandered away, internally screaming and crying and jumping around in joy and confusion, none of it showing externally, his face an even more impenetrable mask than usual.

As Harry boarded the underground bullet train with one of his dearest friends, he still wasn’t sure how he felt or how to talk about it, but he knew himself well enough to be aware he needed a sounding board. And to know he didn’t want Arthur to have any inkling about any of it. The head of the table was truly an uptight bastard at times, and Harry knew that on this topic, as with many others, they did not see eye to eye in the least. And he simply felt keeping the situation private, at least for the time being, was for the best, not for the least for avoiding a lecture from the incredibly unromantic and blasé Chester King.

Harry and Geoff entered the pub they regularly went to when they wanted to be in public doing their drinking. It wasn’t too far from the tailor shop but it wasn’t so close as to be the watering hole for the rest of the agents and others. Here, at the Smiling Crown, they could be assured of relative privacy in public.

After getting their pints from the bar, the two men took seats in a corner booth, the noise from the other patrons providing a nice background hum. Geoff started the conversation, breaking the lengthy silence that had endured since they had boarded the bullet train.

“All right, then, out with it, Harry. What is bothering that curly head of yours now?”

Harry looked at the other man with a frown. “At least I don’t have to shave my head so no one can see how much hair I’ve lost, baldy.”

Geoff huffed. “Don’t evade me, Harry Hart. Don’t turn the subject or go off on a tangent.  _ You _ came to  _ me _ , remember? You’re the one looking to talk, so talk.”

Harry sat up straight. “I was in my office this afternoon, doing some paperwork -”

“From how long ago, Harry? You know your backlog is the worst of everyone. You’re late for everything, aren’t you? From meetings to reports.”

“Now who’s changing the subject and going off on tangents?” 

Geoff nodded in silent acknowledgment and apology and Harry continued. “Regardless, I was in my office and working on mission reports and requisition forms when - God, Geoff - I - I felt tingling in my arms and hands and then my legs and feet. I nearly passed out from shock. I realized, I - I’ve been so busy and overwhelmed these past few years and in medical or just, I can’t recall a vision trance since I was twenty-eight. The one we drank to, the storm clouds. I’m thirty-two, Geoff! It’s been four years and I haven’t been conscious for my visions for the past three. The year after - after - when I was twenty-nine, I thought I might have a vision at the normal time but if you’ll recall, the day before my two weeks mandatory leave was scheduled, I was kidnapped by that Soviet spy and spent the time unconscious from my injuries after the rescue.”

Geoff nodded. That had been a bad mission. Harry had been in a very bad mental place for several years, taking chances he should not, cutting corners, and just generally not overly caring about his life. It was only within the past six months the fog had really started to lift and Galahad was no longer the most reckless and irresponsible knight in the agency. Granted, the insanity had brought them even closer, as Geoff became Harry’s permanent handler among his other duties; Harry had driven three other handlers into ulcers or nervous breakdowns with his antics. But still, it was a good thing he had become more careful and caring of his own life again.

“I realized as I sat there waiting for what was coming that I hadn’t been, well,  _ compos mentis _ would work, either during the former trance date nor during this new one since I lost my mate and had my storm trance. I was either in the medical wing, drugged and recovering from injuries, or drugged by an enemy (you remember that one, in the Alps), or knocked unconscious from an explosion (in Thailand) or in an induced coma after that mission to Toronto or well, frankly, this time last year I was in an alcoholic stupor and blacked out. It has been a year since we lost Reg and I didn’t handle it - in an altogether healthy manner last year. To lose both Reg and Arthur in a car accident of all things, black ice and an out of control lorry, and then have no real option for a new Arthur except Chester, since we all knew the only other runner for the spot would have been Reg. Everyone always knew Kay and Tristan were being groomed for the spot, as alternatives for us to choose from. And then to be left with Kay! And the godawful gloating smile on his face when he ascended to the head of the table - I just went home that night -” Geoff looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow, “very well, I went home that afternoon and got falling down, passing out, don’t recall anything or how I ended up sprawled on the floor in the conservatory, drunk. I may have had a vision and don’t recall it due to the alcoholic blackout or I may have been passed out from the alcohol and missed it entirely. I have no way of knowing. Or this might be the first year I have one if my mate was reborn in the year since that blackout. They could be anywhere from a year old (or less likely but statistically not impossible, a few months old) to four years or so.”

Geoff shook his head in disbelief. “So, you had a celebration vision trance with the rainbow colours and now you are fretting because while you know your mate has been reborn, you don’t know if it's been within the last year, or if you're incredible recklessness with your life led to you missing that first colour-filled vision. Only you, Harry. And though I know yer going to fret yourself raw about it, there really is no way to know, not until they reach puberty, at which point you could get a better idea of the age. All you know is they were conceived on this date sometime in the past four years or so. Which puts their birthday anywhere from say five months to eleven months from now. Granted, eight to ten months are more likely but medicine is doing wonders with premature births these days and some women are very late in delivery. Eleven months is highly improbable but possible.”

Harry downed the remains of his Guinness in one long swallow. “I don’t even know if they’re a boy or a girl, Geoff. I knew from my first vision my mate was male, but with a reborn mate, it could change. I have no idea.”

Geoff chuckled. “And you won’t, not until they hit puberty. Welcome to the land of uncertainty, Harry, my friend.”

Harry’s head hit the table with a thunk and a groan and his friend laughed.

\---

_ September 1999, Ireland _

Harry Hart sometimes hated his job. As he pushed through crowds of families and children, meeting the eyes of everyone under four feet tall, his bespoke suit covered in candy floss and popcorn, his Oxfords covered in mud and worse, he cursed the decision he had made thirteen years previously to become a knight.

“Excuse me,” the knight constantly murmured to children as he looked at them, searching for the information dealer who sold state secrets and troop movements to whoever paid the highest and sometimes selling the same information to multiple people who could meet his price. The man’s cover: the dwarf man in a circus that toured Europe and northern Africa. “Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me.”

\---

_ October 1999, Paris, France _

“ _ All right, Galahad, just mingle with them; stay calm and don’t be condescending. We need this information and we have to figure out which one of them she passed the disk to. It is in one of them. We know that much, and that it will be picked up and passed on after the party. But all we have to go on is the voice print, no physical description, so you need to get them to talk. If possible, to say the words ‘Teddy’ and ‘lovely’. _ ”

Harry nodded his head subtly, knowing the glasses would pick up the movement. He walked forward, inwardly grimacing, and sat next to the first potential mark. He looked at him and smiled. “I like your bear. Its outfit is very well made. What’s his name?”

The boy held up the bear to the agent and said, “Buzz. He’s a robot bear but looks real. He goes on adventures with a squid and a horse and they ride on motorcycles and fly planes because they’re superheroes and they don’t eat their vegetables because they think they are nasty, especially broccoli ‘cause they are deformed trees and should be torn down.”

Harry smiled even as he inwardly sighed, glancing around at the forty children in the ballroom holding teddy bears.

\---

_ December 1999, London, England _

Harry crossed a tidy living room decorated for Christmas and squatted down in front of the child playing with a snow globe, the sobbing of the widow echoing behind him. He sighed as he looked at the young child, the child who would probably barely remember his father the hero, the hero who was dead because Harry had missed seeing the grenade and Lee had not.

“What’s your name, young man?”

The boy looked at him shyly and lisped the answer, “Eggsy.”

“Hello, Eggsy.” Harry smiled sadly at the boy in his Christmas sweater, surrounded by gifts his father had gotten for him he would never see him enjoy. “Can I see that?” 

The boy held out the snow globe and Harry took it in his hand, swirling it around. He showed the young boy the medal his mother had refused to take. “You take care of this, Eggsy. All right?”

Eggsy nodded his head and reached for the symbol of Lee Unwin’s bravery and loss and Harry’s own fatal error. Harry glanced back at Lee’s widow and then again met the boy’s blue eyes. “And take care of your mum, too.”

The boy nodded solemnly once more. Harry sighed, placed the snow globe on a table, gripped the young boy’s shoulder in a show of silent support and shared grief and left the young family to its mourning.

\---

_ February 2000, Scotland _

“The tracker is pointing to the warehouse straight ahead,” Harry murmured over the comms. He crouched in the shadows of an alley and slipped on a pair of infrared goggles. “I read heat signatures of ten on the main floor, spread out, no more than three in close proximity to one another. There are at least four upstairs, all close together. None of the heat signatures are small enough to be Rebecca. Merlin, do the plans for the building show a basement? There’s too much solid rock for me to use the infrared.”

“ _ Affirmative, Galahad. The structure has a large basement. It spans the entire stretch of the building according to the plans. Best idea is to go in stealth, take out as many as you can, silent approach. Then head downstairs. The goggles should work through the floorboards once you’re inside. _ ”

Harry smiled. “I’ll do my best to keep it quiet, Merlin.”

The voice squawked loudly over the comms, “ _ I mean it Harry. You go in guns blazing, they might kill the wee lass before you can find her. Break necks, amnesia darts, garrotes, slice throats, no guns! I’m not gonna be the one ta tell Gawaine his granddaughter died ‘cause Galahad was a showoff. _ ”

Harry took a deep breath and nodded. “I know, Merlin. I’m perfectly capable of taking out the targets, silent and deadly. I’ll try to keep a few alive for interrogation but if it is a choice between keeping one of them alive and bringing Rebecca home to her family without having to use a body bag, I won’t take prisoners.”

“ _ Understood and agreed, Galahad. Good luck. _ ”

Harry proceeded into the warehouse, picking the locks on the closest door. He made his way carefully through the cavernous, yet maze-like space, slowly exterminating the guards, quiet and utterly deadly. After the first floor was clear, Harry ascended to the small second floor that took up one wall of the warehouse. He didn’t want to leave enemies behind him able to ambush him on his way out. 

The four men were gathered around a computer monitor, seemingly transfixed by what they saw on the screen. It made it simple for Harry to shoot each in the neck with an amnesia knockout dart before any of them realized they were no longer alone. Harry looked at the screen and cursed as he realized what he was seeing, Merlin echoing and more in his ear. Harry slammed the goggles on and stared downward, now seeing the heat signatures in the basement of the warehouse.

“It wasn’t kidnap for pay or for revenge on Gawaine, Merlin. It was a fucking coincidence. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a fucking child sex ring! They’re kidnapping children to sell them into sexual slavery. Fuck, fuck, no way in hell!”

“ _ Galahad! Galahad, I see it. Galahad, you need to - Harry - Harry, you need to - we - you’re going to scare the kids, stop, Harry, now was that really necessary, oh, bloody hell, in all fucking senses of the words, Galahad! Fuck, this is one hell of a mess, literally. Oh, now, that was poetic justice, right there. Nice. But really, get control, Galahad. Ooh, last one, decided to get artistic, did we? _ ”

“My apologies, Merlin,” Harry replied as he smoothed down his suit coat and ran his hand through his hair and straightened his glasses. He looked around at the pedophiles lying on the ground around him. There were the remains of over a dozen men, though it would take some work to determine that with some of the bodies literally severed into multiple pieces. Bodies were cut open, many with their insides lying on the floor, others missing limbs, and nearly all with significant injuries to their groins. The last killed was pinned to the ground with several knives through his shoulders and into the concrete floor and his penis was missing, until one looked into his mouth. “I’m afraid I let my temper get the best of me for a minute there.”

“ _ Indeed. That’s what we’ll call it, shall we? At least you left the ones in the office alive. They’re the one most likely ta have the info we need to take care of the wider ring. Now find somewhere to clean up a bit before you get those children free. The clean up team is ETA four minutes. _ ”

Harry nodded, though frankly, based on the little faces peering out of the cages around the room, it was a moot point. But the smiles on those faces made it clear they weren’t afraid of him, no matter his brutal treatment of their captors.

\---

_ August 2000, London, England _

Harry sat slumped in a very ungentlemanly posture on the armchair in his den.  Mr. Pickles sprawled on the floor, head on his slipper-clad foot. Across the room, Geoff, now know as Merlin and fully in charge of the tech and handler divisions, and Percival, now a senior knight, sat in their own armchairs. Each man had a glass of whiskey in hand.

Percival sat forward and verbally prodded his old friend. “All right, Harry, spit it out. You practically begged us to come over tonight and we both know you got out of lockdown just before you came to see us. Did you finally see a vision? It seems a little early, but puberty can come early, and by the timeline you’ve figured out over the years, your mate could be ten, which isn’t overly early.”

Harry shook his head. “No, no vision.”

“Then why the urgency, Harry?” Merlin inquired. “Percy’s right. When you invited me over, you were nearly vibrating with tension. Well, at least to someone who knows you as well as I do.”

“I told you. Straight out, I said it. No vision.”

Percival was the first to understand. “You mean, you didn’t even have a rainbow vision? No vision at all? But they let you come home, your lockdown is over, so -”

“Damn it, Harry, you didn’t lie about it?”

“No, Merlin. I had the tingles and pain, then after half an hour, there was no vision. No vision of any kind. At all.”

“Oh, holy fuck! Only you, Harry Hart. You felt the pull and warmth, didn’t ye? You met yer soul mate during the past year but they aren’t in puberty yet so you met but couldn’t bond.”

“Exactly! And I still have no clue how to find them! I don’t know their gender and will now never have a vision giving me a clue. All I’ll have is a geographical pull and the warmth of the love in the bond.”

Percival took a deep drink from his tumbler. “And you can’t even follow the pull because you’ll be locked down at HQ whenever it happens.”

“Thank you for stating the obvious, Percival.”

“But, well, Harry, you aren’t exactly known for being around children and your mate is under eleven and over seven. How many children in that bracket have you interacted with since your last vision?”

Geoff laughed aloud as he understood, being Harry’s handler.

“That’s the problem. This past year my missions have been filled with damned children fucking everywhere!” Harry took a deep breath. “I've never interacted with so many children in my entire life as I have in the past year. I mean, two months ago there was the trafficking ring that Gawaine’s granddaughter got pulled into and before that was the spy who slipped a stuffed bear with a  disk inside it to a child at a teddy bear party and then there was the damned circus! I had to look those kids in the eye to make sure one of them wasn’t the damned circus dwarf man, hiding. I - and those - they were just random public children at the circus with their families. There is absolutely  _ no way _ to track any of them down. Assuming it was one of them. And leaving out that mission, the other two had me talking to or at least interacting in some way with over seventy children. Adding the circus crowds could put the number over one hundred, probably more. I truly think Fate hates me. Any other year and it would be simple. But this year had to be the year of children. Damn it, I’ll never find them again.”

“Take heart and don’t despair, old chap. You may be unable to follow the pull due to Kingsman policies, Harry,” Percival rationally pointed out, “but once your mate hits puberty or adulthood, they can follow it from their end to find you.”

“Assuming Harry isn’t out of the country during their trances,” Merlin pointed out.

Harry threw a pillow at the Scot’s head for that particular pointed reference before he sighed and poured himself another drink, determined to drink his worries away, at least for the night, safe among friends.


	2. Eggsy Unwin

_ 1980s and early 1990s, England _

Lee Unwin and Michelle Grant met when they were both eight years old. Michelle and her family moved next door to Lee and within months the two were fast friends. At puberty, the two helped each other through the aftermath of their first visions. 

Michelle helped Lee through the fact that his soul mate was another boy: his life wouldn't be the way he had always envisioned. but he could still make it work.Things were changing and family social dynamics were shifting. There were plenty of ways to have his soul mate  _ and  _ a family, from surrogates and medical intervention to adoption to waiting until after he had kids to search out his mate.

Lee helped Michelle come to terms with the fact that her soul mate was already a grown man. She saw visions of him fighting in the army, with an officer’s stripes on his arm. He was a major which meant he was at least in his late twenties. Michelle learned to deal with the fact that she was re-born in her soul mate’s life. It was a difficult thought for some to deal with, that their mate will likely have memories or visions of them from their former life. Some found it creepy, some found it sweet, some just found it hard to comprehend, knowing they themselves wouldn’t recall. With Lee’s help, Michelle dealt with it and came to terms with the knowledge.

Lee helped Michelle again when they turned eighteen and she had a trance filled with grey and black swirls. Her mate had been killed, likely in action somewhere, since he had been a soldier. She had been planning to conduct a mate search within a few months, once they had their GCSE scores. Now, her mate would have to be re-born and grow up before she even had a slim hope of finding him or this time, perhaps, her.

It was Lee who came up with the idea of getting married. He wanted a family but he knew his mate was a man. Michelle wanted a family but her mate wasn’t even a baby yet and could end up being a girl. Even if Michelle’s mate was again male when re-born, there was no guarantee they would be able to meet right away when they were old enough to get together. Michelle could well be too old to have children when she met her re-born mate.

The two best friends agreed to get married and have a family. They would worry about blending if and when they found their mates. Lee joined the army to provide for Michelle and on April 19, 1992, Michelle Unwin neé Grant gave birth to a baby boy. He was over a month early, though very healthy for it, and Lee was barely able to get there before he was born. 

The child was named Gary Edward Unwin but the moment his father laid eyes on him, he gained a lifelong nickname, when with tears filling his eyes, Lee muttered, “My little Easter egg, so beautiful, loverly lil’ eggsy, you are.”

\--

_ December 23, 2000 _

Eggsy Unwin lay on his back in his bed. He was in his pajamas and was ready for bed but it was well past the normal time for him to go to sleep. It had been an odd day for the young boy. It was nearly Christmas and the flat was all decorated, the presents all ready and wrapped and under the tree. And then there had been a knock on the door and that strange man in the suit had talked to mum and made her cry. 

Eggsy was only eight years old but he was smart. While he had been playing around with the snow globe, he had been listening to the adult's conversation. He heard what the man told his mum. His dad was dead. He wasn’t coming home ever again. He had been with some odd thing that wasn’t his army unit and so there wouldn’t be the army death benefits. Eggsy didn’t know why the army normally thought death was a benefit but he could tell it worried his mum.

Then the man had given him that medal when his mum had refused it. Eggsy liked the medal. It was pretty and it meant his dad was a hero, important. And Eggsy thought about the phrase the man had told his mother to say, “Oxfords, not brogues.” It was weird but Eggsy knew he would never forget those words. He didn’t want to use the number on the medal though he wished the man would come back and tell him about his dad some.

Eggsy was tired and unsure. After the man had left, Eggsy’s mum had collapsed into sobs in the bathroom and when she came out after a half hour, she had gotten the bottle of special drink they kept in the cabinet in the dining room. Eggsy knew it was expensive and the three bottles there had been gifts from men in his dad’s unit for Christmas in previous years. Within an hour, the full bottle of what the label called ‘Scotch’ was empty and his mum was sound asleep on the sofa.

When Eggsy got hungry around supper time, he tried to wake her but she just rolled over on her stomach and lay still again. Eggsy had made himself some cheese toast using the microwave and watched his mum sleep, while his fingers played with the medal.

When Eggsy knew it was his bedtime, he again tried to wake his mum and she just mumbled, “Cursed, army, cursed me,” then started snoring, so he got himself ready for bed but couldn’t fall asleep. He spent hours looking at the medal and thinking about his dad and how he needed to take care of his mum like the man told him. Around midnight, the young child got up and got the blankets from his parents’ bed and carried it into the living room. He carefully tucked it around his mum’s unconscious form and kissed her on the forehead like she did for him when he was sick. He tucked a pillow alongside her, between her body and the back of the sofa so she could find it in her sleep if she wanted it and then he went back to his own bedroom, finally able to fall asleep, feeling accomplished and grown up. It was a routine that he would get used to over the coming weeks and months as his mum spiraled into a deep depression and found relief in alcoholic stupors when she wasn’t working at her new job at the hairdresser.

\---

_ April 19, 2001 _

Eggsy sat forlornly on one of only two unbroken swings in the playground near the council estate. He was alone and feeling incredibly sad. The day before had been his birthday but his mother had completely forgotten. She had gone to work and Eggsy had gone to school. His friends, Ryan and Jamal, had made him cards and each had given him a pack of candy as a gift. It wasn't much but neither of the boys came from families that were more well-to-do than Eggsy’s own. And the fact of the matter was, Eggsy realized, since his dad’s death his family was slipping steadily down the economic ladder.

Over the past several months, Eggsy had educated himself on what death benefits were and why they should have gotten them but didn’t. He realized his mum’s previously part time job as a hairdresser that she had begun when Eggsy started school as a way to not be stuck on the flat all day and to have a bit of extra spending money for luxuries, had been transformed. It had now become a full time job with overtime, when she could get it, in order to put food on the table and to keep the electricity and gas on. Luckily the flat was fully paid for; it had been bought, Eggsy knew, after his mum’s father had died before he himself was born, with the money from his will. So they wouldn’t end up on the street. 

But Eggsy realized rapidly after that visit from the posh gentleman that his mum wasn’t going to get over it. Passing out on the sofa that horrible night had not been an aberration but the start of a pattern of behavior. She started drinking as soon as she got home from work and didn’t stop until she passed out. Sometimes she would make dinner but most nights it had become Eggsy’s responsibility to cook and make sure she didn’t just drink  _ her  _ dinner. He had used the internet at school to look up lots of cheap, easy to make recipes and gotten money from his mum to go shopping. He took care of her as much as an eight year old could care for a grown woman who didn’t want to be cared for.

Christmas had been miserable. Eggsy had eventually opened the presents under the tree, and had opened Michelle’s for her and left them in a pile in her bedroom. There had been no mother-son bonding over the gifts. Just a lonely and sad little boy carefully unwrapping presents while his mother lay unconscious a few feet away.

Eggsy was hating his mother’s drinking, even if he was sometimes able to get answers from her when she was drunk. Michelle had different types of being drunk. When she was nostalgic or weepy, she would tell Eggsy tales of Lee and her in childhood, or just ramble on to herself about her soulmate and Lee’s soulmate. She would answer questions on those topics if Eggsy posed them carefully. If they weren’t carefully posed, or if Michelle took them the wrong way, her calm stupor would transform into a raging one. She would throw things and scream and yell, though she never hit Eggsy. But she would rage at him, telling him that his existence was the reason Lee was dead. That his birth was the reason she and Lee married and Lee joined the Royals. If they hadn’t had a family, Lee could have gotten other work and wouldn’t be dead.

Eggsy sighed as he pushed himself on the swing. He had known that his mum wouldn’t remember his birthday. Most of the time she couldn’t recall what day of the week it was, let alone what month. But still, the now nine-year-old hated her in those moments. And he hated the man who took his dad away from them. 

The sun was starting to set when Eggsy looked up from his contemplation of the ground beneath his trainers and saw a man standing, leaning against the pole that held the swing set up. To Eggsy’s eyes, the man looked a bit out of place though he couldn’t pinpoint how. He was wearing dark blue well-worn jeans and a blue striped button up shirt. He was carrying a jacket over his arm. It was brown and long, looked like a trench coat. Eggsy looked down at the man’s feet. The shoes looked a bit posh, they weren’t trainers but they could be what a man around here would wear to work if he was in an office or something rather than a factory or lower end job. As his gaze flowed back up the man’s frame, Eggsy’s eyes caught on his right hand and realized what had detracted from the picture of casual man who lived in the council estate or nearby. There was a bright gold ring on the man’s finger. And not on his ring finger either, like a wedding ring. It was on his pinkie finger. That was posh. This bloke didn’t belong here. Eggsy raised his eyes and met the man’s, a bit of curiosity but mostly wariness showing in his gaze.

The man smiled, “You’re bright, just like he always boasted, Eggsy.”

Eggsy stood up from the swing and walked behind it, putting the strip of plastic and its metal chains between him and the man. “How d'ya know my name?”

The man stood straighter but didn’t move from his spot ten feet from the boy. “I knew your father, Eggsy. He talked about you constantly. He was so proud of his little egg.”

The boy relaxed minutely but didn’t move from his defensive position. “Yeah? Prove it.”

“Before he left for his last - deployment, he took you to the zoo and you spent over an hour in the snake house because you wanted to see if you were a parselmouth like Harry Potter. At the last tank, the snake actually moved when you talked to it and you thought it had worked until you saw the zookeeper behind the tank, slipping a mouse into it. When you left, you were embarrassed and made him promise not to tell your mum.”

Eggsy nodded and his eyes filled with tears that he refused to let fall. “Yeah, okay. He wouldn’t’a told that story to just anyone. You in the Royals? A Marine like him, then?”

The man looked down for a moment, biting his lower lip, then met Eggsy’s gaze once more. “Not exactly.” The man took a deep breath. “You know that your dad wasn’t with his unit when he died?”

Eggsy nodded. “That’s why we don’t get no death benefits. He wasn’t a Royal no more. Or something.”

The man looked incredibly sad. “Yes, Lee had left the Royal Marines to join a - hmm - another unit. That other unit, that’s where I met Lee. I - we - uh - Eggsy, can we sit on the bench? I’d like to tell you a few things but I think you should be sitting and all. I’ll sit on one end of the bench and you can sit on the other and I won’t come any closer, okay?”

Eggsy narrowed his eyes and bit his lip. He really wanted to hear more about his dad and so far this bloke hadn’t lied to him. And he could sit on the edge, ready to run if he need to. He nodded and walked over to the nearest bench, keeping a careful eye on the distance between him and the man. He perched on the edge of the bench seat as the man sat on the other end, a few feet away, and leaned back against the bench, his back pressed against where the arm of the bench met its back. His leg was drawn up and tucked under his other leg which was bent so the foot was flat on the ground. Eggsy relaxed a bit as he understood that the man’s position wouldn’t allow for swift movement, or at least not swift rising.

The man smiled again. “First, I realized I haven’t introduced myself. My name is James. Lance. James Lance. And when I met your dad, at the - um - training with the other unit, we realized that we - Eggsy, you know about soulmates, right?”

Eggsy nodded. “We learn about that in school and dad used to talk about the visions and stuff. And since he died, mum, well, I found out mum and dad weren’t soulmates, just best friends.”

The man sighed, “That’s right. Your dad loved your mum very much but they weren’t mates. They grew up together and got married so they could have the family they both wanted. They were both in situations with their mates that meant they might not be able to have children - at least, not easily - with them if they ever met.”

“Right, I know. Mum’s mate is a kid, real young and she might be too old if they meet.”

“Yes, and your dad, well he knew that his soulmate was a man. And two men can’t have children together biologically. They can get surrogates and things like that, but well, you understand that only women can have babies, yes?”

Eggsy nodded with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not an idiot, bruv.”

The man laughed, “Right, sorry, I’m just trying to make sure what you know at your age but I don’t want to treat you like a baby. So, forgive me for my missteps and clarifying, all right.”

The young boy nodded. “I guess it’s been a long while since you had school classes on mates and sex and all, huh? You’re pretty old.”

“I’m not ancient, Eggsy. In fact, I’m only twenty-six. But I wasn’t sure what your particular school taught and when and how in depth. Or what your mum might have told you.”

Eggsy smiled. “Okay, I’ll forgive ya for bein’ a posh bloke what doesn’t know what lower class schools teach.”

“Posh?”

Eggsy nodded. “Yer got it almost right, bruv, but the ring - that ring looks solid gold, and yer wearin’ it on yer pinkie. That screams posh. A guy around here might have a solid gold ring, but it’d be a wedding ring and on the ring finger. On the  _ left _ hand.”

“Sharp eyes. Well done, Eggsy. And yes, I suppose you could call me posh, at least compared to the people you know. But I’m not high class, Eggsy. Not nobility or even close to it. My parents were well off before they died and my father inherited his business from his father who inherited it from his father. But my mother, she came from the East End when it was near its worst reputation. She still spoke with a bit of a Cockney burr up until she died ten years ago. I spent a lot of time with her and when I’m comfortable - or drunk - I tend to slip in my speech patterns to a softer tone.”

“Yeah? She got out, huh?”

James nodded. “She married out, if you will. She and my father were soulmates and they met and bonded during the Blitz when they both took shelter in the same - well - shelter.”

“Neat.”

“But we seem to have gotten off track, Eggsy. When your father and I met, during training, we realized that we were soulmates. We -”

“Ya got the whole gold light show and all? I ain’t never seen that.”

“And you won’t, not until you meet your soulmate after you’ve gotten to puberty. The only ones who see the ‘gold light show’ as you put it, are the mates themselves. It isn’t thrown off for the masses, Eggsy. It is entirely in the minds of the soulmates. But, yes, we saw the golden flowing lights between us when we met. We wanted to bond but the situation we found ourselves in, it wouldn’t have been - prudent or - well, maybe not safe. We planned to complete the bond once the training was over and decided one way or another. But, well, before that could happen -”

“Dad died.”

James looked down, tears in his eyes, “Yes, Lee died. He was my hero, your dad. He saw something that the rest of us didn’t and he died saving my life and the lives of the others who were with us. If he didn’t do what he did - lots of people would have died, both then, including Lee, and later. I can’t tell you details, it is classified, but know that your dad died to save others.”

Eggsy swallowed hard. “Fanks.”

“I - I would like to get to know you, Eggsy. If things had worked out differently, your father and I would have completed the bond and we would have blended the family, it would have been you, your mum, your dad, and me. But, well, we didn’t and now - I don’t have any legal standing to even see you and I don’t want to hurt your mother more than she already is, so that’s why I haven’t come to the flat.”

Eggsy nodded, eagerly. “I’d really like that.”

James smiled. “Good. You, well, you are sort of like my stepson, at least to my mind if not to the legal system and while I can’t be around all the time, I’ll be around when I can.”

Eggsy smiled. “I get it. You’re still in that unit thing that you met dad in. You got missions and deployments and what all.” Eggsy nodded solemnly. “You got ta protect crown and country. It’s what my dad woulda wanted.”

James chuckled wetly. “Quite right. It is exactly what your dad would have wanted me to do. Not waste his sacrifice. And I won’t.”

James reached out a hand to the boy, and held it in the air. The young boy scooted closer and his own hand grasped the larger one and carefully shook it. 

“Oh, and I happen to know that yesterday was a very special day. I hoped we would be able to meet soon, so I got you something.” James reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small wrapped box. “Happy Birthday, Eggsy.”

\---

_ September 14, 2008 _

Eggsy casually strolled down the street, hands in his jacket pockets, his snapback pushed back on his head. He was grateful it was a Sunday so he had not had to ditch school to do this. He was carefully following the pull in his heart. 

When he had first had his hot flashes leading to his first vision-day he had been excited, only to not see a vision but just feel the pull. And granted, he felt not just a pull but the love of the soulmate bond but it still upset him. The love was awesome but the pull didn’t really give any overt clues as to his soulmate’s location. And stuck in the school’s trance room, he had no way to go wandering. All he knew that first year was that his soulmate and he had met before both of them reached puberty. His soulmate could be older than him or younger, male or female, living across the street or halfway across the country. He would never have a vision that would tell him these things.

In the three years since that first vision, he had skipped out of school to follow the tug. The first time he had walked from his area toward central London, he had just felt a pull southward. The first year he was able to get out and follow the pull, he started from the council estate and again got pulled south. The next year, he knew it was coming and got the Overground to the British Library. He figured to work on triangulating the pull. He understood geometry and also that if his soulmate wasn’t in a fairly fixed spot every year, he would get messed up readings sometimes but it was the best idea he had. He also knew that if his soulmate was far away, as in across the country or across the channel, even, it wouldn’t work so well, at least not on the scale he could accomplish during school. But Eggsy was a determined teen. And he figured it was a start and also that after his last several years of life, he deserved a bit of good luck. 

And he got some luck. The pull from the British library was still south but more southwest than directly south. It meant his soulmate was likely in London. Unless they were in a different place altogether from the previous year.

The third year, Eggsy began at Westminster Abbey. It was basically south of his flat and sort of southwest of the library. The pull tugged him north west, past Buckingham Palace (and he thanked God it hadn’t tugged him to there, what a trip that would be), and through Green Park before his ten minutes ended.

So, this year, Eggsy started where he'd ended the year before, just north of the edge of Green Park and he was walking fast. He was hurrying up Old Burlington street when the direction pulled a different way. It was tugging east. He hurried up to the end of the road and turned east and just as he got to Savile Row at Clifford Street, the tug pulled southeast. And before he could turn down Savile Row, his ten minutes ended. 

Eggsy pouted but began a careful stroll down the posh street, casually examining windows of tailor shops and art galleries, positive that his soulmate was within one of them but not sure which. But it did determine for Eggsy that his soulmate was, first of all, posh, and second of all, not a kid. There was no school near this spot he'd been tugged toward since he was thirteen. And while it was currently a Sunday and a kid could be getting fitted for clothes or looking at high end art, they wouldn’t be here during the school week in previous years. 

His mate was a grown man or woman who likely worked at one of the posh stores he was walking past: Sprovieri, James Hyman, Kingsman, Abercrombie & Fitch, Grieves & Hawkes. Eggsy nodded to himself. His soulmate, someone from this lifestyle, wouldn’t want a chav like him. At least, not an obvious chav. He’d best start taking James’ speaking lessons more seriously if he wanted a real shot. 

As Eggsy got the Underground back toward his home, he decided he would start working on improving himself and when he was older, maybe eighteen or nineteen, just a few more years, he’d follow that tug back to Savile Row and find his soulmate and whoever it was wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with him. It’d be a struggle, he knew that. Especially with Dean in the way and making him do what Dean made him do to protect his mum, but he was a determined lad, as James always told him. He could do it.

\---

_ September 15, 2014 _

Eighteen months, Eggsy thought. Jail for eighteen months, a year and a half. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be away from mum and Daisy, his sweet little sis, for that long. Dean would kill them or let them die. 

Eggsy hated his life sometimes. The lack of power he had over it, the huge amount of power his stepdad Dean had over it, the death of his dad and the death of any kind of meaningful mother/son relationship that was healthy with his mum, the loneliness from the hole where his soulmate belonged; it all was too much some days. And when it got to be too much, Eggsy did stupid stuff. 

Case in point, on edge because once again his soulmate pull was in a weird direction, nowhere near Savile Row or even London. It had been pulling straight southeast and Eggsy knew enough about how the pull felt now to know his soulmate wasn’t even in the country. If they had been, the pull would have been softer, less stretched. When he was a teen and was being pulled toward Mayfair, the tug was always sweet and sort of bubbly. Once he hit his majority though, the tug was harsh and felt thin, like pulled taffy or a rubber band about to break. It wasn’t that his soulmate had moved out of the country though. Those tugs were always in different directions. It was maddening to the young man. 

He was always on edge for a few days after his yearly connection and earlier tonight, just a day after Eggsy had spent hours near Savile Row waiting for his tug, Dean had calmly joked about sharing Michelle, his wife, Eggsy’s mum, with his arsehole of a third-in-command. And then at the pub, Dean’s second had gotten on Eggsy and he couldn’t contain himself. He stole his keys and went nutty. 

And now, eighteen months in jail for car theft and reckless driving. He knew he could lessen his sentence if he rolled over on his friends, but Ryan and Jamal were actually going places. Ryan was just offered an entry level apprenticeship with a mechanic and Jamal was already working at a furniture store as a mover and was being given lessons on sales. At the moment he was answering their phones part time, he wasn’t good enough to be on the floor yet, but it was only a matter of time. Eggsy couldn’t ruin their lives just because  _ he  _ was an idiot and they were good friends.

Every time  _ Eggsy  _ had tried to better himself, he slid right back down into the hellhole Dean had created in his life. As a kid, he had been awesome at the gymnastic lessons James had paid for. And his mum didn’t even know he took those classes. She was too far gone in alcoholic and drug hazes by then. He was even being pushed to try for the junior Olympic team when Dean had broken Eggsy's collarbone because Eggsy tried to stop him from hitting his mum. After the recovery, he couldn’t do the same and had to drop out of the classes. 

James had tried to help again and taught him to turn his formal gymnastics training into a more informal parkour. Eggsy loved it, free running around the city. And he even strengthened his shoulder back to nearly where he had been before he had broken it. 

James had helped to educate him, bringing him books and teaching him things, taking him to museums and to see things like the opera and the ballet, trying to help him be more cultured in his speech. 

Dean disliked hearing Eggsy talk posh and made sure the boy knew it. Whenever he would slip and speak better with an upper class accent, Dean would take him into the bathroom, fill the tub with ice cold water and hold his head under again and again. Eggsy learned to hold his breath for long periods from that torture. And he learned to let the idea of talking properly go, at least until he could get out of the estate.

James bought him presents for his birthday and for Christmas, sometimes just giving him a gift card or some cash for no reason in particular. Dean found Eggsy’s windfalls suspicious and decided to get money out of him. He started by making him run drugs for him around the estate and then the neighborhood. And after he hit fourteen, Dean sold him to men for the night. Eggsy hated it but knew that if it wasn’t him, it would be his mum, so he learned to act like he enjoyed being fucked for money, money that he wouldn’t see a bit of, and ignored the sick and dirty feelings inside of him every night at bed. It just made Eggsy glad that his soulmate wouldn’t see visions through his eyes, wouldn’t know what a literal whore Eggsy was.

Eggsy never told James about the depths Dean forced him to. James knew Dean was a drug dealer and that he had gotten Michelle hooked on some major drugs. He knew that Dean ran prossies and rent boys, but he didn’t know any of them were underage. And Eggsy didn’t grass on his stepdad. He hated the man but he loved James and didn’t want him to be hurt, either physically at the hands of Dean and his goons, or emotionally because of Eggsy’s actions. And it wasn’t like he could legally take Eggsy away. James and Eggsy's dad hadn’t completed the bond. So to the law, James was just an old friend of Lee. Eggsy knew James had connections, sometimes when Eggsy was having a really rough time or near Eggsy’s birthday (never a full pattern that Dean could catch but one that Eggsy could) Dean would end up behind bars for a few days or a few weeks. Never for long enough to really change things but enough for Eggsy to have breathing room.

Then Eggsy had joined the Royal Marines, a recommendation from James helping him along, only to get a call from his mum. Dean had gotten her sober enough to understand that her son was trying to be a soldier, like his dad, and like her original soulmate, and she lost it. And she dropped another bombshell that sealed his fate. She was pregnant.

Eggsy left the training and returned to the estate, returned to delivering drugs, returned to sucking cock and letting men fuck him for money that went into Dean’s hands. Dean didn’t care that Michelle was pregnant. It wasn’t his kid. Eggsy found out Dean had been lying and while Eggsy was out earning for Dean, his mum was doing the same at the flat. The baby could be any number of men’s, she had no idea, too high to know the difference.

Eggsy fell in love with his little sister, though, when she was born. She was early and sickly, not addicted,  _ exactly _ , but with health issues due to his mum’s addictions. Eggsy took to using his parkour skills to break into houses to pay for what the little girl needed, bottles and formula and diapers and toys and clothes.  _ Dean  _ wasn’t going to provide it. Not when he knew the girl wasn’t his biological child. And maybe even if she  _ had  _ been. Dean wasn’t really father of the year material.

Eighteen months. Daisy wouldn’t last that long with a drugged up mother and no actual father, not at her young age. Eggsy knew if he called James, he would get him out, but he had spoken to him last week and knew he was going on a long deployment, maybe for a few weeks, possibly for a few months, so that wasn’t an option. Eggsy knew he had one possibility, the medal his dad’s friend had given him that Christmas his dad had died. It might not work, but Eggsy had no choice but to try.

Eggsy pulled the necklace with the medal off and gazed at the numbers on the back. He picked up the phone and dialed.


	3. When Harry Met Eggsy

_ September 16 - 19, 2014, England  
_

“Galahad, good to see you back safely.” Merlin stood in the underground hangar at Kingsman HQ in Hampshire, as Harry Hart stepped off of the private jet.

“Well, I wrapped things up last night and after the news - I just - well, I had been planning to stay another day or two in order to clean things up but I passed that on to the appropriate crew in Morocco. I wanted to be here for Lancelot’s sendoff.” Harry sighed.

“Of course. But it is a good thing for another reason. A call came in very late last night, actually it was more like early this morning, with an old code phrase of yours. I sent the feed to your glasses. I think you might want to deal with this yourself. Especially considering recent events. I pulled up some research and got things ready; when you say the word, it’s all on yer glasses. Listen to the call on your way back to the shop and you can deal with it after the toast.”

Harry frowned but acquiesced to the Scot’s suggestion. as they exited the hangar and Harry prepared to board the bullet train car, Merlin cleared his throat, “If you don’t feel - able to deal with the situation, I will. It is my debt, too, Harry.”

Harry was bewildered but exhausted so he put it to the side in his mind as he took his seat and buckled in. As the train took off towards Savile Row, Harry placed his glasses on his face and found the audio file Merlin had alluded to. 

> _ Customer complaints. How may I help you? _
> 
> _ Um, my name's Eggsy Unwin. Sorry, um, Gary Unwin. And I'm up shit creek; I'm in Holborn police station and my mum said to call this number if ever I needed help… _
> 
> _ I'm sorry, sir. Wrong number. _
> 
> _ Wait, wait... Oxfords not Brogues? _
> 
> _ Your complaint has been duly noted, and we hope that we've not lost you as a loyal customer.  _

Harry turned off the glasses and slumped in his seat, unobserved. He couldn’t believe Lee Unwin’s boy had called at this point in time. Just after Lancelot died.  And for such a thing. He wondered why the boy was in jail. He would find out after the toast. He couldn’t think about it right now. The boy wasn’t going anywhere.

A few hours later, Harry lounged against the wall outside the Holborn Police Station waiting for the son of his former candidate to be released. He had spent the morning reviewing the files that Merlin had put together on the boy and had found himself both impressed and disappointed.

The boy had true potential but continually came up short and quit before reaching it. Gymnastics that could have put him on an Olympic team but he quit. Head of his squad in Marine training, just a few months shy of qualifying but he quit and went back to his life of petty crime. His arrest record was mostly juvenile and sealed (except to Merlin’s excellent skills) and consisted of being picked up for recreational drug use and underage drunk and disorderly. He had two arrests for joyriding before he turned sixteen and two (including the night before) after he left the Marines. It was a pity; Lee would be so ashamed of his son for his life choices. 

The door to the police station opened and Harry saw the young man whose photo he had memorized walk out. He lifted his head as the boy hurried down the steps and spoke, “Eggsy. Would you like a lift home?”

The sound of his name brought Eggsy’s head and body turning around and his eyes met Harry’s and they both froze as the other was surrounded with a bright, flowing golden light, filling their eyes and hearts as the bond between them snapped into place at its first full stage.

Eggsy was in shock. This was him, his soulmate. He tried not to hyperventilate as the lights died and he asked with a small quaver, “Who are you?”

Harry swallowed harshly, as he replied, “The man who got you released.”

That was swell, but it didn’t answer anything Eggsy wanted to know and he knew the other man knew what he had meant. His tone belligerent, Eggsy pushed, “That ain't an answer.”

Harry stayed leaning against the wall as he again somewhat evaded Eggsy’s real query. “A little gratitude would be nice. My name is Harry Hart, and I gave you that medal. Your father saved my life.”

“Still not what I’m meaning, mate. And you know it, too. If you was in the unit with my dad, you ain’t stupid. Your names’ a start, ya obviously know mine. But ya gonna jist ignore what jist happened? I ain’t good enough to even answer?” Eggsy tried not to let tears fill his eyes as all of his insecurities about himself and not being wanted when he finally met his mate surging harshly within him.

Harry stood up straight. “No, that’s not - I wasn't expecting this, Eggsy. I had forgotten I had met you during the year I - I met a lot of children that year and I had no clue.”

Eggsy took a step forward as his voice took on a hopeful tone. “But ya ain’t not interested?”

Harry winced at the sentence structure but answered,  “I am not uninterested. I have interest but not right now. There are things we need to work out and things you need to know, to deal with -”

Eggsy’s chin pushed forward stubbornly, “Uh uh, mate. Uh uh. You interested, then we bond, no waiting until the time is right or the planets align or whatever bullshit you’re thinking. Waiting to complete the bond is jist askin’ fer fate to stop it from happenin’ at all. I know that lesson. You want to complete the bond, you want to be wif me, you ain’t too ashamed uv me?”

Harry shook his head in negation.

“Then we complete this fuckin’ bond now, today. Not tomorrow, not next week or next month or whenever. Now. We can wait to tell people, long as we file the paperwork, we can wait for a ceremony, and the frills and what all, but we do it now or we don’t do it. I bin waiting and trying to find ya since I was a kid, basically. And fuck but you been hoppin’ ‘round the world the last few years, ain’t ya? But I nearly had ya when I was sixteen. Just a block off, I reckon. And I want to bond wif my soulmate like ya wouldn’t believe, mate. But I ain’t gonna wait around fer you to be comfortable with it. If ya want it, the complete bond, we do it. If ya don’t, well fanks fer gettin’ me out of jail and have a good life, yeah?”

Eggsy was stubborn and determined. He would not live like James, filled with regrets for being stupid over waiting to complete a bond. He wouldn’t take that chance. He wanted this man, this Harry Hart, but he wasn’t going to take that chance. If Harry didn’t want the bond now, especially considering his age, then he was never going to want it like Eggsy did and would always have another reason to put it off. Eggsy wouldn’t have that. He’d rather walk away from the possibility than be kept on the hook. 

Harry stepped forward and closed the distance between them. “Very well, Eggsy. I should be a gentleman but I can’t. I won’t take the chance on your ultimatum. I won’t lose you, not now I’ve found you again. It is not an acceptable idea. Do you have somewhere nearby we can go? I refuse to just find something as crude as a back alley.”

Eggsy smiled brilliantly. “Yeah, mate. I know a place. It’s nice and not the cheapest but it ain’t got bugs or nuffin, either. Ain’t no hour motel but we can take our times wif it, yeah?”

Harry smiled showing all of his teeth. “Most definitely, Eggsy. I have been waiting decades to meet you. I plan to make this bonding a full on banquet with multiple courses.”

Eggsy swallowed as his eyes widened. “Aces.”

\--

Harry laid his hand on the small of his soulmate’s back as they entered the motel room. He gazed around and found it satisfactory. He had been in much worse places. This room was fairly nice, the paint wasn’t peeling, there were no odd odors or stains, the bed was made and clean, the pictures on the walls were generic landscapes. It would do. He would love for this bond to be completed in the most lavish honeymoon suite but beggars couldn’t be choosers and after so many lonely decades, Harry was not about to let this beautiful young man slip away from him. This was his one chance and he wasn’t going to stuff it up.

As the door closed and Harry slid the lock home, he asked delicately, “Do I need to take a quick trip to a store? I highly doubt this establishment offers complimentary sexual aides.”

“Nah, mate,” Eggsy grinned and chuckled. His hand pulled a tube from his pocket. “Always be prepared, yeah? Like a scout I am.”

Harry smirked. “Indeed. I still think a trip might be a good idea. That isn’t much considering what I plan to do to you. I said a multi-course banquet and I quite meant it.”

Eggsy arched an eyebrow. “Got it covered mate, trust me.” He slid another three tubes from his pockets as he spoke.

“Out partying, were we?” Harry pushed down his jealousy. After all it wasn’t as if he was still a virgin himself.

“Nah, just bein’ prepared. Really. I never know what’s comin’ round, do I? Better to be ready then caught flat, innit? I got rubbers, too, but I’m clean and well, we ain’t never gonna be able to be wif no one else now so I don’t mind goin’ wifout if you want to. If you want ’em though, I got ‘em.”

“No,” Harry replied with a soft smile. “I’m clean and I don’t want anything between us when we complete the bond. It isn’t like I could get you with child which would be the only argument for it in this situation that I would understand and agree with.”

“Nah, mate, all man, me and no Mpreg either.”

“Sorry? I can follow fairly well but Mpreg? I’m afraid that lost me.” Harry carefully eased out of his oxfords as Eggsy sat on the bed, pulling off his trainers.

“Mpreg, it's a term for the fantasy idea of male pregnancy, yeah? Mpreg - male preg.”

“Ah, of course, I see.”

Harry stalked forward and smiled down at his soulmate who grinned back at him. He placed his hands on Eggsy’s elbows and yanked him off of the bed and into his arms. “Well, then, if we’re agreed on those basics, I believe I’ve waited quite long enough to fuck you, my mate.”

Eggsy shivered in the older man’s grasp. “Yeah, ya have, my mate, my soulmate.”

Harry leaned down and crushed his lips to Eggsy’s, their tongues meeting and dancing together as Harry began pulling the zipper of the younger man’s jacket down. He felt his own suit jacket being unbuttoned and sliding down his arms. The two men continued to kiss as they rapidly undressed one another.

When they were both naked, Harry lifted Eggsy in his arms and swept him to lie on the bed, his lips trailing along his jaw to his neck and down his chest. Eggsy gasped and moaned underneath the onslaught and ran his hands over Harry’s hair, disheveling it.

Harry continued his assault on Eggsy’s flesh, kissing and licking and sucking over every inch he could reach. He needed to imprint his soulmate’s form on himself. Over fifty years alone, and now, at last, he would be whole. He was a selfish bastard, taking everything his young mate offered to him but there was no way he could walk away. He was keeping Eggsy, however he could.

Harry’s tongue swirled over rough spots on Eggsy’s chest, across his freckles, laved his belly button, and continued lower. He kissed the scars as he came across them and nuzzled against Eggsy’s stomach, living the moans and whimpers he was drawing from his love.

At last, Harry reached Eggsy’s cock, leaking and bobbing as he jerked beneath the older man. Harry engulfed the cock with one long swallow, his tongue working the underside as he hummed around the wonderfully large cock in his mouth and throat. Eggsy arched up and Harry’s hands moved to play with his balls as he hummed more, giving the boy a proper deep throated blow job. 

“Harry, fuck, Harry, please, oh God, Harry, yer mouth, jaysus, please!” Eggsy descended into incoherent moans and groans, his hips jerking almost involuntarily. Harry could tell his young lover was trying not to thrust, wanting to not choke Harry. His mate was so polite. But Harry could take it and he placed Eggsy’s hands on his head and moved them up and down. As he gazed upward through his eyelashes, Eggsy’s eyes met his and he gasped. 

“Oh God, Harry, really? Damn!” Eggsy grabbed hold of Harry’s hair and began thrusting, fucking the older man’s face as Harry relaxed and let the younger man set the pace. It wasn’t long before Eggsy shook and tried to pull Harry’s head off of his cock. Understanding, Harry denied his lover and swallowed hard around the cock in his throat and with a yell Eggsy came.

As the younger man’s cock finished spurting Harry decided to continue his explorations. After all, he had only served up the appetizer. He slid down the fairly boneless young man and spread his legs open, his tongue, tiring but still willing, swirling over Eggsy’s balls and then lower. Eggsy moaned and shifted at the sensations as Harry reached his ultimate goal and his tongue swirled inside Eggsy’s ass, licking around the hole and thrusting in and out, rimming the younger man for all he was worth.

It wasn’t long before the chav began to get hard once more, his nubile young body very much up for the challenge of a banquet. When Harry saw Eggsy was once more fully engaged, he slid his body upward and nuzzled at the young man’s hair, his hands carefully tearing open one of the packet s of lube his lover had carried just in case.

Harry slicked up his cock and meeting Eggsy’s eyes and holding them, he carefully slid inside his soulmate, centimeter by centimeter, until he was fully seated. Eggsy’s eyes watered but there was a huge smile on his face as he lifted his legs and, with a gymnast’s flexibility, laid them on Harry’s shoulders. 

As Harry thrust and made love to his beautiful young man, he felt Eggsy tighten and loosen around his cock. Eggsy ran his hands up Harry’s back and across his shoulders, almost bent fully in half as he was fucked into the mattress. Harry reached for Eggsy’s cock and stroked it in time to his thrusts and as he found the prostate, he angled himself to hit it with every move. Within minutes, both men were panting as their orgasms overtook them and their bond fully settled into their hearts and minds, sealing them together for this lifetime.

\---

Eggsy sat across from Harry in a booth at the pub nearest to the motel room they had just spent hours bonding in. They were both exhausted but had agreed they needed to get out of the room for a while. They sat in a back booth and Harry ordered a pint of Guinness while Eggsy got a pint of pale ale.

For a bit they simply basked in the knowledge of the fact that they were sitting with their bonded soulmate, but after a while, Eggsy decided to question Harry about his past. Eggsy knew if Harry had known Lee and been there when he had died, then he was at some point in the special forces thing that James was still in. But it was possible Harry had retired since then. Granted, he was still fit as fuck, as Eggsy had discovered for himself over the last few hours, but he was getting old for a special forces type of post. And the pull that had directed Eggsy towards Savile Row as a teen also pointed to a man no longer in the crown and country protection business.

When questioned, Harry talked about being a tailor, reassuring Eggsy his soulmate was indeed a civilian now, regardless of what he had been when Eggsy was a child. The medal phone number had likely been taken by someone and passed on to him. And the fact that he was able to get Eggsy out of jail was likely due to former connections or something. 

Then Eggsy asked Harry about his past, before his retirement, wanting to know what he could tell him about the unit his dad had died while in, and that James still worked in. Eggsy smiled across the booth at his mate. “So before you was a tailor, was you in the Army? Like an officer?”

Harry smiled back at the younger man. “Not quite.”

Eggsy pressed harder. He knew James never talked about specifics but he hoped what with Harry being both retired and Eggsy’s soulmate that he would answer. “So where was you posted - Iraq or something?”

Harry shook his head. “Sorry, Eggsy. Classified.”

Eggsy sighed internally. Well, maybe he could get some more information about his dad’s death. James had told him the basics, but he didn’t like to talk about it, for obvious reasons, and Eggsy had always respected that. He understood it caused James pain to recall witnessing the actual death of his unbonded soulmate before his very eyes. “But my dad saved your life, yeah?”

Harry sighed. “The day your father died, I missed something. And if it weren't for his courage, my mistake would have cost the lives of every man present. So I owe him. Your father was a brave man. A good man.” Harry paused, his lips twisting like he had gotten a mouth full of sour lemon. “And having read your files, I'd think he'd be bitterly disappointed in the choices you've made.”

Eggsy sat back, shocked and hurt. His soulmate - what - he couldn’t understand what was happening. “You can't talk to me like that.”

Harry spat out the facts he knew. “Huge I.Q., great performance in primary school. And it all went tits up. Drugs, petty crime, never had a job.”

Eggsy felt utterly betrayed. His soulmate was attacking him and he didn’t know what to do. This had come out of nowhere. “Do you think there's a lot of jobs going around here, yeah?”

Harry leaned forward and kept pressing, questioning, “Doesn't explain why you gave up your hobbies. First prize, regional under tens' gymnastics, two years in a row. Your coach had you pegged as Olympic team material.”

Eggsy wanted to explain, the beating that had damaged his collarbone, that had never been properly set by a doctor, that James had helped him to recover from, but too late to continue gymnastics, turning instead to parkour. But he was hurt and getting angry and couldn’t fully verbalize his issue, not with the emotional quagmire swirling through him. “Yeah, well, when you grow up around someone like my stepdad, you pick up new hobbies pretty quick.”

Harry simply twisted his lips further, “Now of course. Always someone else's fault. Who's to blame for you quitting the Marines? You were halfway through training, doing brilliantly, but you gave up.”

Eggsy lost it. Harry didn’t understand. He couldn’t. And this man, his soulmate, was looking down on Eggsy and his choices and was ashamed of him, as Eggsy had always feared since he had walked down Savile Row and realized his mate was going to be posh. Eggsy was good for a bonding fuck but nothing more. Eggsy was never good enough for more. His dam broke and he practically growled out his hurt. “Because my mum went  _ mental _ , banging on about losing me as well as my dad. Then we wouldn't be cannon fodder for snobs like you,  _ judging  _ people like me from your  _ ivory towers _ with no thought about  _ why  _ we do what we do. We ain't got much  _ choice _ , you get me? And if we was born with the same silver spoon up our arses, we'd do  _ just  _ as well as you, if not better.”

Eggsy sat back and glared at his soulmate, fighting against the tears that wanted to rise in his eyes. He refused to let Harry see them. Not now. Not ever. Not if this was what he thought. Part of Eggsy wished he had just done the fucking eighteen months. It would have been better to have never met his soulmate and to wonder and hope rather than to know for sure his soulmate thought he was trash, just as Dean had always told him. Eggsy tried to think of what more to say when the bell over the pub’s door rang and a harsh voice interrupted his musings. “What the fuck are you doin’ here? Are you takin’ the piss?”

It was some of Dean’s goons led by his second in command, Rottweiler. Eggsy cringed. When he decided to bring Harry here, he hadn’t thought about the fact that Dean's goons practically lived at the Black Prince. He had still been riding the high from the bonding. And Harry was being so posh and gentleman-like to them, asking to finish his drink and all. Eggsy felt the deep-seated need to hurry the other man out of danger. Eggsy knew he had it coming to him and they would never let him get away now that he was cornered but Harry could go. He knew the other man had been special forces or whatever but he was retired and a tailor now. He was fit but most of the gang carried hidden knives at the least and Eggsy knew that Rottie carried a gun. He couldn’t let Harry pay for Eggsy’s fuck-up the night before.

Watching Harry get up and walk towards the door was one of the hardest things Eggsy had ever had to do but he knew it was for the best. Harry would be safe and Eggsy would take his beating. Then maybe they could meet up again and figure things out. Harry had nearly made it to the door when Poodle, the fat fuck, had to open his mouth and made a crack, and Eggsy knew as soon as the words hit the air it was over. He saw Harry pause and his back stiffen.

Then Harry locked the fucking door and tried to lecture the goons on manners of all things. He was going to get hurt, bad. Eggsy would do his best to get in the way but here were six of them and he couldn’t keep them all busy at once. Eggsy tensed to get up when suddenly his eyes widened. Harry had hooked his umbrella’s handle around a nearly empty tankard and sent it flying into Rottie’s forehead, knocking him out. And then proceeded to kick all of their asses without even breaking a sweat. What the fuck?!?

The smoothness of the moves, the leashed lethality behind the actions, this was  _ not  _ a retired man. Harry was still active in the whatever it was that James and Eggsy’s dad had been in. And when Rottweiler pulled his gun and Harry opened his fucking brolly and it made the bullets bounce off it, Eggsy was sure. His soulmate had lied to him. He was not a  _ tailor _ . And he had protected Eggsy. After closing his umbrella when Rottie was again unconscious, Harry gave Eggsy a look that practically set his hair on fire. He felt the bond tighten between them and was hard enough to cut diamonds in an instant.

Harry used his watch to knock out the bartender and then approached Eggsy. Eggsy braced for anything, a snogging, a shaking, sex in the booth, whatever. But Harry simply retook his seat in the booth and drained his Guinness. Eggsy stared at him, incredulous. 

Harry sighed. “Sorry about that. Needed to let off a little steam. Heard yesterday a friend of mine died. He knew your father too, actually.”

Eggsy cocked his head: that confirmed it. Harry was still in the unit or whatever. James had never specified what it was. Eggsy wasn’t sure if it was military black ops or more like MI5 or MI6 or something. So he usually just called it the unit. Harry was an active member, soldier, officer, agent, whatever, just like James was.

Harry stood and looked down at Eggsy. He was both ashamed of his loss of control and pleased with his showing off. But Eggsy was a civilian and he’d just seen things that could get them in very deep trouble if he mentioned it to anyone. He didn’t want to dart Eggsy, especially as sometimes the amnesia part worked a little too well. Harry didn’t want to risk Eggsy forgetting about meeting him. 

Eggsy seemed to read his intentions and raised his arms high. “No, please, I  won’t say nothing, I swear. You can trust me, Harry. My mate, I swear. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s keep my mouth shut.”

“You won’t tell a soul? Not your mother, not your mates, even in passing?”

Eggsy shook his head. “Ask the feds. I’ve never grassed anyone up. Why would I do it to you, my soulmate?”

Harry smiled over his extended arm. “Is that a promise?”

Eggsy nodded. “On my life. On our bond. I promise, Harry.”

“Much appreciated, Eggsy.”

Eggsy smiled at him. “You know, we paid for that room for the rest of the night. We could get some - rest.”

Harry cocked an eyebrow. “Rest?”

Eggsy smirked. “I was tryin’ to be a gentleman, Harry. I’m hard enough to cut through diamonds here, mate. That was seriously hot as fuck and I want to take you back to that room and fuck for hours.”

Harry chuckled. “Sounds like a plan to me, Eggsy.” Harry extended his hand and Eggsy placed his own in it. As Eggsy stood next to Harry, the older man wrapped his arm around his lover and smiled down at him as they wended their way around the fallen goons and out of the pub. He still couldn’t grasp his luck at finding his soulmate and being wanted.

\---

Eggsy lay sprawled across Harry’s chest and played with the sweat-slicked hair on his lover’s chest as they recovered after their exertions. He was in awe that this man who knew so much about him was still here. He had truly thought in the pub that Harry had been leading up to wishing Eggsy a good life and walking out. He supposed he should thank Rottie and the boys for their timely intervention. He now knew for sure his soulmate  _ was  _ ashamed of him  _ but  _ was still willing to be with him. Eggsy would improve himself and find a way to be worthy of Harry. It would take a little while to regularly slip back into the more posh accent James had drilled him in, but being around Harry was worth it. This, being here with the other half of his soul, content and cocooned in the warmth of his love and affection, was worth anything. 

Eggsy wasn’t sure how they were going to work all of this. He supposed Harry had a house somewhere and maybe would let Eggsy move in. Eggsy could maybe keep house or something while Harry was on missions or whatever. Retired military turned tailor, not bloody likely. But Eggsy wouldn’t push, he resolved to himself. If he pushed too hard or on the wrong buttons, it might push Harry right out of his life. 

Soulmates, even after bonding, didn’t need to be together at all times, or even really at all. They could live and work on different continents, even. It wasn't comfortable for them and the feel of the bond inside of them would pull at them and be needy but it was possible. It meant celibacy for the pair, of course, as even with medical intervention and drugs, a bonded pair, or even a pair who had met after puberty but not bonded, couldn’t become sexually aroused by or with anyone other than their other half. And neither males nor females were fertile with anyone else, either. 

Medical science was working on ways to combine sperm gained from a male while with their male mate with an egg from an unmated female or a female whose female mate was present during extraction so as to allow more possibilities for reproduction among same sex mated pairs after they met. And it was starting to work a bit, too. It was just far easier to have children through whatever means you desired, before you met your mate if they were same sex. So, Eggsy figured he and Harry likely wouldn’t have kids. 

Harry could probably afford the treatments but if he was still active military or whatever,  _ and  _ with his age, he didn’t think Harry would want kids. They could talk about it once Harry trusted him a bit more and told him about not being a tailor but Eggsy was fine with it. He had a shitty childhood and while he loved his little sister and would protect her to the end, he had no desire to have sprogs of his own. He knew he’d love them to pieces but he didn’t feel qualified, emotionally, to be a dad.

Eggsy sighed and snuggled closer to Harry as he basked some more in the afterglow of sex with his mate. He put aside all of the heavy thoughts and worries and just enjoyed the emotions flowing freely through the bond as he drifted into a light sleep.

An hour later, Eggsy woke to Harry pushing his hair out of his face and kissing his head. “Hmmm, hello.”

Harry smiled down at him. “I’m afraid I have to go, Eggsy. I’d like you to come to my house tonight, if you would. I believe we have quite a bit to discuss and work out.”

Eggsy nodded as he pushed himself up to look Harry in the face. “Course. What time do ya want me?”

Harry smiled widely at him. “Ten, I think, should work.”

Eggsy nodded and watched as Harry got up and dressed in his tailored suit. Eggsy stretched and wished they could just spend the rest of the week in bed but he wasn’t selfish. He rose to his feet and joined Harry in dressing. Eggsy finished more quickly, having less fiddly things to don, but he didn’t mind watching his mate dress. Harry truly knew how to wear a suit with style. Of course, Eggsy thought his mate would look drop dead gorgeous even in a paper bag but the suit enhanced it all.

Harry finished buttoning his suit coat and approached Eggsy with his arms wide. Eggsy threw himself into the arms of his soulmate and gripped him tightly, feeling Harry’s hands gripping tightly on his shoulders, as his fingers drew circles on the back of Eggsy’s jacket.

“Take care of yourself until this evening, Eggsy.”

“Will do, Harry.”

Harry left, pulling back slowly and smiling as he did. Eggsy sat on the bed for a few moments contemplating the huge change his life had undergone, before rising and walking back to the council estate. His mind was caught up in the memories of his time with his soulmate and he wasn’t paying careful attention when he entered the flat. It was a bad mistake that nearly proved fatal.

\--

Harry sat at the desk in his home office, the bug he had placed on his soulmate’s back transmitting the sounds of traffic as Eggsy made his way back to his flat. He hated being away from his newly-found mate but he needed to test him. Eggsy had seen him fight like no tailor would and Harry had been unable to bring himself to use an amnesia dart on him. But based on Eggsy’s records, he was lazy. He coasted along, dropping things when they got hard or when he was bored with them, gymnastics and Royal Marine training being only two of several examples. And he then made excuses like what he'd said in the pub about his stepfather or his mother. 

Harry loved his soulmate but he had to know how much he could reveal to him about his actual life. If Eggsy went home and bragged to his friends about his mate who could put down a pub of brawlers inside five minutes or told his mother about the man who knew his father and how he was a fighter, Harry would need to know. Regardless of Eggsy’s lack of a past of “grassing” people, Harry rather suspected  _ this  _ would be too much to pass up. Finally finding your soul’s other half and bonding and learning they were something more than just a boring humdrum person - Harry needed to know how much damage control he would need to do in life.

Minutes later Harry was vibrating with rage as he spoke over the airwaves. “But I would. I have enough evidence on your activities to have you locked up for the rest of your life, Mr. Dean Anthony Baker. So I suggest you leave the boy alone or I shall be forced to deliver it to the appropriate authorities. Eggsy, meet me at the tailor I told you about.”

Harry waited until he heard no sounds other than Eggsy’s breathing and then shut his laptop. He kept the feed playing on his glasses and left his office, headed to the tailor shop. He sat on one of the small sofas and tried to calm his thoughts as he waited for his soulmate to arrive. 

Harry desperately wanted to go to the council estate and show Eggsy’s stepfather what had happened to his goons was a schoolyard dustup compared to what waited for Dean Baker. Getting him sent to prison would be too easy, too  _ soft _ . If Harry had thought he needed to let off a little steam in the pub, now he felt like Krakatoa, ready to blow and decimate everything in his way. And if he aimed that lethality at Dean and his little gang of toughs, well, karma truly was a bitch.

As he worked to leash his homicidal urges, Harry's thoughts dwelled on the awful confrontation he'd had in the pub with Eggsy. He had attacked him because he had been disappointed in what was in his public records, the lack of living up to the potential Harry saw within him. Eggsy had been so hurt, Harry could feel it through the bond. But Harry felt he had the high ground and that Eggsy needed his goading to stop being lazy. 

Eggsy had tried to explain, had said his stepfather was a problem, but Harry’s head had been too far up his own arse to listen or believe it was more than a lame excuse. Obviously, it was more of an understatement. Dean Baker was violent,  _ casually  _ violent, as soon as Eggsy had entered the flat. And Eggsy had taken the hits, remaining silent on Harry’s existence even at the potential cost of his life. 

The reactions of Michelle and Eggsy to Dean’s actions had made it absolutely clear this was not a unique occurrence. Eggsy was used to being hit by his stepfather. Michelle was used to watching, she had tried to get Eggsy to run, she knew what was coming and didn’t stop it. Eggsy’s mother let her husband abuse Harry’s soulmate, likely from the very beginning of her marriage.

Harry felt a fool. He had seen what he wanted to see. He hadn’t wanted to think that because he couldn’t bear to face Lee’s family, hadn’t kept track of them, too filled with his own guilt at Lee’s death, that they had fallen prey to a predator. Harry had preferred to think that growing up in a poor environment had simply encouraged Eggsy to be lazy, to grow up and expect the government to hand him money, on the dole. Harry felt like a lowly bug; he had been a classist snob indeed, just as Eggsy had accused.

Harry realized that while he talked the talk when poking at Arthur, he had a difficult time truly believing in the true abilities of those of the lower classes. He internally bought into the high class rhetoric he'd grown up with. Harry vowed to be more aware of his own prejudices, the ones so ingrained into his psyche he never knew they were there until the day’s events and his reactions to them had brought it vividly home to him.

Eggsy was full of potential. And Harry suspected that much of that was  _ because _ of his background, rather than  _ despite _ his background as Harry had assumed. Growing up as he had had given Eggsy the tools he needed to survive. And it likely was a common thing among those of the lower - no, not lower, even the terms he thought in showed unconscious prejudice - the poorer classes. When one didn’t have the advantages of a silver spoon and connections, in order to prosper, one needed to gain those skills early. Many of Harry’s fellow Kingsman agents didn’t truly begin to get survival skills until they joined the armed forces or even until the Kingsman trials. Eggsy had learned them years before, when still a child, Harry suspected. 

Harry vowed to do better and never again make his soulmate, the one he had longed for over so many decades, believe he was ashamed of him. Eggsy deserved so much and Harry would make sure he got it, and the opportunities to use his skills for the good, rather than for the bad as his stepfather likely demanded.

__

Eggsy made the oh so familiar turn onto Savile Row, though this time he finally knew his specific destination. As he strolled down the block he gazed in the window of Kingsman Tailors. Eggsy didn’t see the mannequins with the bespoke suits, he saw himself as a teen and then a young adult, wondering if this was the shop where his soulmate was. 

Eggsy walked in the door for the first time, recalling his anticipation the first year after he found himself on Savile Row during his vision pull. Standing at the head of the block as the extremity pain faded and the pull began, though it no longer pushed him down Savile Row, not that year nor any of the following years. The pure luck that brought him here now, having finally met and bonded with his soulmate.

Eggsy pulled open the inner door and saw his soulmate sitting on a little sofa, a glass of Scotch or something in his hand. He grinned at Harry cheekily. “I ain’t never met a tailor before, but I know you ain’t one.”

\--

Eggsy followed Harry down the hallway toward a tall bald man with a clipboard and heard the man say, “Galahad.”

Harry turned his head to Eggsy and explained, “My code name.”

As the other man commented, “Late again, sir,” Eggsy’s eyes widened and he huffed a laugh.

“ _ Yer _ Captain Galahad?”

Both Harry and the new man stared at him. “Eggsy, how do you know that name? I haven’t been called that since my military days.”

Eggsy grinned. “Well, I knew he was in a unit, didn’t I? Since he was with my dad when he died. But he couldn’t tell me about classified stuff but he told me about the people he worked with, that my dad knew and worked with. It helped.”

Harry frowned. “He? With your father when he died? I don’t - oh.”

“Yeah, James. I don’t know his real last name, he said it was for my safety  _ and _ his. But, well, he came around lots when - since dad died. It think it was helpful for him, too, ya know? We, like, grieved together. He never came to the flat. He knew it would just cause issues with my mum and she was bad enough as it was. But we met in the park or he picked me up and took me places. He didn’t have legal standing, ‘cause he and my dad were stubborn and stupid, but he did what he could. I woulda called him when I got taken into the police station, actually, but I saw him a week ago or so and he told me he was off for a long term mission, maybe weeks, maybe months. So, I knew it would be a wasted call.”

“Oh, Eggsy, I -”

“Eggsy?!?” A posh male voice echoed down the concrete hallway from the direction opposite of the bullet train.  “Eggsy Unwin? Whatever are you doing here, young man?”

Eggsy glanced down the hallway and saw a familiar face. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see ya here, Perry. Wasn’t sure this was the same unit James worked in until I found out this here was Captain Galahad, but since it is, well, I ain’t as surprised as I should be. And I’m guessing this other fellow must be Wiz? I mean, bald, Scottish, quietly snarky? James nailed it.”

“Ah. You’re here for the trials? However did that happen? I suspect in other circumstances you’d be here as James’ candidate. And if I hadn’t had a ready proposal, I would have brought you in myself. It seems only fitting that you have this opportunity. Lee and James would have been proud to see you here.”

Eggsy gulped as he picked up on the phrasing. “Lee  _ and  _ James  _ would have been _ ? James is dead? This - I’m here trying for his spot, ain’t I? The spot my dad died trying to win, the spot James died while holding, I guess? God. Poetic irony much?”

Percival stepped forward and laid a hand on Eggsy’s arm. “You didn’t know about James, my boy?”

“Nah, who would tell me? Harry didn’t even know I knew James til jist now. You’re the only one who ever knew and I ain’t heard from ya in months, since we all went to the ballet in June.”

“Oh, Eggsy, I would have contacted you. He would have wanted you to know. But he only just died a day ago and well, to be perfectly frank, there won’t be a funeral, per se. There’s no body. So, the only thing you missed was the internal Kingsman memorial which you would not have been permitted to attend even had you known of James’ death immediately.”

Harry spoke up. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Eggsy.”

“James and my dad were soulmates, yeah? They didn’t bond because they wanted to be in the unit, Kingsman, I guess. And so they were waiting until the training was complete and one of them got the job. Then they were gonna bond and blend the family. But dad died before they could. It’s why I was so adamant about not waiting. Life happens, and it’s often shit. I learned that lesson early. Things work in the end,  _ maybe _ , but death’s hard to wait for. But hopefully their new lives will be easier, now that they’ll both be reborn together. But while James considered me his stepson, there was no  _ legal  _ standing. He couldn’t  _ prove  _ he had been my dad’s soulmate. So, he came to me in secret and helped behind the scenes. He got me the gymnastics lessons and when I had to quit ‘cause of Dean breaking my collarbone and all, he helped me to transfer the skills into parkour and got me physio for the joint and muscle. And he would buy me little things and take me places to ‘culture me up’ for the future. Like the ballet or the opera or museums. He was more my stepdad than Dean  _ ever  _ was. And when he could, he got Dean locked up for a while. It stopped working after a bit, at least, Dean was outta the flat and in jail but after he lost a big score a few years ago when it happened, he put more structure into his pack, didn’t he? If he was locked up, then Rottweiler or Poodle were in charge. And if all three of them were nicked, then he had others ready to step in until they was out again. The only thing that changed was that only Poodle felt he had the right to come into the flat when Dean was in jail. But Poodle was below Rottweiler, so that only happened once.”

Percival frowned. “I’m so sorry Eggsy. We thought it would work.”

“Did for a bit and it was nice to not have him around the flat but well, it didn't change the other things. I still had to do what Dean set up for me to do. It was what it was, yeah? I never told James all of it. He woulda gone down for multiple homicide, for sure.”

“Eggsy? What didn’t you tell us? We know about the drug running and wheelman work and the burglary. What - oh, Eggsy, that son of a bitch! When?”

Eggsy raised his eyebrow at his stepdad’s old companion. “When what, Perry?”

“Don't act the idiot to me, young man. When did he start making you sell yourself for him?”

Eggsy grimaced. “Dean’s cagey, Perry. I know you and James knew about the prossies and rent boys he ran, and there were plenty of those, to be sure. But for all your vaunted spy training and access, you never knew about the  _ other _ rings; the ones that were word of mouth and where you needed an introduction from a current client to even get heard. There’s about twelve kids most times, youngest usually around nine or ten, oldest is fifteen, sixteen maybe, but the teens is only ‘cause Dean’s been running them since they was young. Some is runaways, some have families with debt to Dean’s crew, some just had shitty parents that sold ‘em to Dean for money or drugs or favors. I was just lucky for him. He could play me, do what he told me or he’d whore out me mum. ‘Course, after I went to the Marines, I found out he had been doing that anyway. She’s so high, she don’t know the day of the week most times, let alone who’s fucking her. My baby sis ain’t Dean’s. Don’t know  _ who  _ her dad is. Don’t know how many clients Dean sold her to. But I went home to take care of them, didn’t I? No choice, did I?”

Harry laid a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder, the joint heaving under the emotional outburst. Percival cringed and growled. “We’ll get him put away for good this time, Eggsy. Hm and his entire crew. You mother and sister will be safe.”

“Mum can’t survive on her own, Perry. And Daisy ain’t old enough to fend for herself like I did. Mum’s too damaged, too addicted.”

“We’ll work something out, Eggsy.” Percival met the eyes of his fellow Kingsman agents. “You’re one of ours, whether you get James’ spot or not.”

Harry squeezed Eggsy’s shoulder. “He’s right, Eggsy. I was an ass in that pub. I didn’t know more than the surface information and Lee would have been proud of the man you’ve become.”

Eggsy turned around and wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist, holding tight until the storm of emotion inside him subsided. He sniffled and Harry handed him his handkerchief. After Eggsy was composed, the Scottish man who had been quietly observing, spoke up, “Now we’re  _ all  _ late. In you go lad, let’s get started.”

Eggsy entered the dormitory and Harry sighed deeply, before turning to Percival. “ _ Perry _ ? Really? How did you come to meet Eggsy, Percival?”

The other agent smiled sadly, “Through James, of course. You know he and I were companions. I knew about him and Lee. And he knew about my situation. We loved one another and frankly, Eggsy was a huge part of his life. I can’t tell you the number of times I had to talk him out of kidnapping that boy. Now I wish I had let him do it. We could have hidden him, kept him safe, new identity. But I was too uptight about the law, and look what that poor boy went through because of it.”

Harry lowered his head and growled deep in his chest, involuntarily. “I think jail is too easy for Dean Baker. I’m sure we can come up with something more - fitting.”

Percival frowned, “Harry, how did you get involved here?”

“He called the number on the back of the medal I left with him when Lee died. He had gone joyriding and hit a police car. He was looking at a long stretch in jail. I got him out and well, he knew his way around Savile Row. He’d been going to the area for years.” Harry looked pointedly at Percival while seemingly idly scratching his chest, over his heart for a moment.

“Oh, Harry. I see. Well, he’s good. He’s very good. James trained him for years, I think he was hoping that Eggsy would get an opportunity to be a proposal. Like I said, if it wasn’t the Lancelot position that opened up, James would most assuredly have raised Eggsy as his proposal. I can’t root for him, not over Roxanne, family and all, but we shall see. I would be willing to place money on both of them being in the end. I don’t know the other candidates, so I can’t say who else will pass the later tests, but I am confident  _ they  _ both will.”

Harry nodded. “I think Eggsy can do it. I believe he will.”

Both men nodded and walked to the observation room to watch the first test when Merlin rejoined them in the hall.

\--

Eggsy took a final deep breath as the water reached the ceiling, and dived down, amazed to be grateful for the abuse he suffered at the hands of Dean Baker. His amazing lung capacity stemmed from his stepfather's fondness for holding Eggsy’s head under the water in the filled tub when he heard him talking with a more upscale accent. Now, it may potentially save his life.

Eggsy saw the other candidates head towards the showers and internally shrugged as he powered through the water to the door. He knew it was a long shot but sometimes the obvious answer was the correct answer. 

As he swam, he saw Amelia struggling, still at her bunk, tangled in her bedding. There was no way Eggsy was going to abandon anyone to drowning, especially not one of the two other candidates who had been decent to him. He changed course and helped the girl get untangled from her sheets and gave her a push towards the showers where the others were breathing somehow.

Eggsy returned to his former course and found that the door was either locked, or more likely, the water pressure inside the room was holding it closed, as it opened inwards. If they had tried the door before the water level filled the room, it might have worked then. 

Eggsy spun around in the water, his chest beginning to hurt from the lack of oxygen. As he swam towards the others, he saw Amelia on the bottom of the pool the barracks had become. She hadn’t been able to make it on her own to the showers and no one had seen her coming and failing. 

Eggsy grabbed the girl by her arm and pulled her along as he got to the others. He caught Roxy’s eye and she saw his intent. She took Amelia from him and after taking a deep breath from her snorkel, held the other girl’s nose and pushed the tube into her mouth. 

No one offered Eggsy a share and he thought how typical that was of the upper class snobs. He wasn’t about to drown and he was coming perilously close to his maximum time he could hold his breath. The door was out, the vents were filled with water and too small to fit even Roxy, but that huge mirror. Eggsy had assumed earlier that it was a one-way mirror and had tested it to be sure. It was the only possibility. They needed to get out of here now. Amelia needed CPR if she was going to survive this “test”. 

Eggsy braced his legs against the wall, grabbed hold of the railing positioned beneath the mirror and hoped it broke as easily as he was assuming it would. The only other choice for escape once the room had filled, holding the door closed, was this spot. So either the mirror would not be as tough or as thick as a normal one, or they were expected to wait for rescue.

Eggsy thought spies would be more likely to want the recruits to find a way to escape than to wait for a possible rescue that may not come. So, he pulled back his fist and struck the mirror, once, twice, then a third time as it finally cracked and broke under the onslaught. Eggsy rode the wave of water into the observation room and the other recruits followed him, some of them more voluntarily than others. 

Eggsy saw Amelia lying still on the floor where the water had deposited her and strode over. He had learned CPR when in Marine training and he knew drowning victims could live even after several minutes if treated. He tilted her head back and began blowing into her lungs. Roxy knelt on her other side and began chest compressions. After a few repetitions, Amelia began coughing and spitting up water and Eggsy sat back on his heels.

Merlin looked at the recruits, “Congratulations on completing, and  _ surviving _ , your first test. Roxy and Charlie, well done on the snorkels. Eggsy, well done on spotting the mirror as one-way.”

Charlie mumbled under his breath to Digby, “I’m sure he’s got plenty of experience with seeing them.”

Merlin scowled at the rich boy. “Frankly, other than Eggsy and Roxy, the rest of you  _ failed  _ this test. Eggsy saw his fellow recruit having trouble and stopped to help her, twice. Roxy allowed her to share her snorkel. And both of them brought the lass back to life. Kingsman is about teamwork, whether with other agents or support staff and handlers. And Eggsy passed with flying colors. Keeping yourself alive when there is no way to get out is always better than the alternative, but the best thing is to find a way to escape. You may not always have backup available. Eggsy tried the door, which was  _ not _ locked, though the room was too full to get the door to open, then he scanned for other alternatives. The mirror was the only other way. He was right. And not one of you offered him a snorkel. Not even when you realized he was trying to break you out. Roxy gets a pass since she was trying to make sure Amelia got air. The rest of you, do  _ not _ . Teamwork! Now, fall out and follow Agent Percival to the locker room to dry off. Amelia, don’t get up lass. We’ll take you to the infirmary to get checked out.”

As Eggsy followed the man he had always called Perry out of the observation room, he looked into the corner and saw Harry. The older man smiled at him and mouthed, “Well done.” Eggsy grinned and hurried after the group.

\-- 

Eggsy sat on a bed in a new dormitory barracks, his body clad in lightweight cotton pajamas provided to the recruits by Kingsman, warm and more importantly  _ dry _ . The other male recruits were primping in the bathroom attached to the dorm area. Amelia was in the medical suite still and Roxy was sitting on the bed to his left. 

Roxy cleared her throat. “I wanted to apologize for my mistake with your name earlier, Eggsy. Especially since that prick Charlie latched onto it. He’s not the type to let that go.”

Eggsy shrugged. “Yeah, he’ll call me that until one of us ain’t here no more. If it weren’t that, it’d be something else, likely worse. Ain’t your fault he’s a right wanker.”

Roxy nodded. “Nonetheless. I apologize. You see, um, it’s just, I know you.”

Eggsy raised his eyebrows and stared at her incredulously. “Sorry, luv, I’d remember meeting a girl like you.”

Roxy shook her head and kept her voice low. “No. We’ve never met but I’ve  _ seen  _ you. But I wasn’t there.”

Eggsy understood. “I’m not your soulmate, Roxy.”

“No. No, I’ve not seen you in a mirror or reflection. I’ve seen you through someone, my soulmate’s eyes. Not every year but several times. And it looked like Eggy or Meggy when I tried to read the lips around you. I couldn’t find a record for a guy your age with those names though. I assumed it was a nickname or I was not seeing it correctly.”

“Properly Gary, but I hate it. My dad called me Eggsy. He died training for Kingsman. Training to be the previous Lancelot, matter of fact.”

Roxy nodded. “Wow, so you’re actually a legacy candidate, sort of.”

“Suppose I am.”

“Anyway, I was hoping you could help me figure out who my soulmate is. I know I can’t go to them until we’re out of training but I want to know, you understand?”

Eggsy smiled lightly. “‘Course. When you saw me through their eyes, where were we? School? Pub? On the street? What did it seem like we were doing?”

Roxy looked down. “You were - I’m sorry. You were in a flat and three of the four times I’ve seen you, a big brute of a man, scruffy face, yellowish hair, was hitting you. Often in my visions, he was hitting my soulmate, too. Or, other things.”

Eggsy stared hard at the young woman. “Your soulmate female, Roxy?”

Roxy nodded. “I’ve always known that. I even got a vision of her when she was heavily pregnant.”

“Her name’s Michelle. Michelle Baker. She’s my mum. And the brute who hits her is her husband, Dean Baker, my arsehole of a stepfather. If you want to meet her after all of this, you got to be sure. She - she’s not in a good place. Dean does thing to her and she’s an alcoholic and he got her addicted to some heavy drugs, too. She’d really need your time and attention, yer understanding, ya know. Her life’s been kinda shit. And the baby, her name’s Daisy.”

Roxy nodded. “I can do it, Eggsy. I won’t abandon her. Just, will you tell me about her while we’re here?”

Eggsy nodded. “Sure. I know good stuff about her, too. Welcome to the family, love.”

Eggsy reached out his hand and Roxy took it in hers and they simply squeezed, lightly but with purpose.


	4. Post V-Day

_February 15, 2015, England  
_

Eggsy sat in the Kingsman infirmary, his suit jacket over the chair by the door. Eggsy sat on the bed, waiting to be checked over for broken bones or cracked ribs. The suits might be bulletproof but the impacts still packed a punch. And Eggsy had taken quite a number of hits after the umbrella had failed in Valentine’s underground bunker.

Eggsy was feeling overwhelmed. The last forty-eight hours had been brutal. Getting to spend time having sex with Harry and just learning from him; being unable to shoot JB, not for Arthur, at least (and how was that fair, Roxy was told to shoot her dog by Merlin, someone they knew and trusted. Eggsy got Arthur, someone he had barely met and who he could tell disliked him); the argument with Harry, the harsh words, him tossing Eggsy’s copy of their binding paperwork at his head; watching Harry go mental in the church and then get shot in the head by Richmond Valentine; the confrontation with and subsequent poisoning of Chester King; the infiltration of the mountain bunker with Merlin; the fights in the halls; the worry for Daisy and his mum; giving the order to set off the neck chips; flirting with the Princess; the fight with Gazelle while the world went to shit; impaling Valentine on Gazelle’s leg; more flirting with the Princess and getting his kiss, not like he _could_ actually take her up on her full offer, not after having bonded with Harry; the flight back to Kingsman HQ; finding out that his mother and sister had survived; seeing Harry’s body, recovered between the time of his death and the setting off of the wave; learning how bad Kingsman had it thanks to Chester King’s sabotage, putting V-chipped phones hidden throughout the complex.

Eggsy was _tired_. And incredibly, overwhelmingly sad. He had finally found his soulmate, just months before, and due to circumstances had only been able to be with him four times. And now he was dead at the hand of a lisping, megalomaniacal genocidal billionaire. Merlin was confident Eggsy would be appointed to the Table, regardless of his failing the dog test. After all, giving an order to kill hundreds of people, including world leaders, to save the rest of the world, (and this after hoisting the king on his own petard) was more of a point as to his character than shooting his dog would ever be.

Eggsy was happy at that but Harry wouldn’t be around to see it. He would never know Eggsy had redeemed himself. Eggsy would never know if his actions after Harry’s death would have made him proud again.

Eggsy would be a Kingsman knight but a lone one. He would live the rest of his life, no matter how long or short that turned out to be, alone and lonely. Eggsy had met and bonded with his soul’s mate. He had his chance during this lifetime. Now he would have to wait to die and be reborn to have the chance to meet Harry again.

Eggsy was tempted to just let his first real mission kill him but he knew it would have seriously pissed Harry off for him to even contemplate it. So Eggsy knew he would push on, likely being reckless and brash, but not suicidal. Forever.

\--

It had been nearly a decade since V-Day (as it came to be called). The loss of over eight hundred million people during the wave and a further three hundred million or so afterward to injuries sustained during the wave or to depression and suicide over actions under the influence of Valentine, was finally being recovered from.

The population hadn’t recovered but in that way Valentine had won, had finally gotten the gist of his message across. Overpopulation was hurting the planet. People understood and believed. They hated him for his actions but they understood his motivations. There weren’t laws against large families but most people had a single child or even none. And all of the laws and taboos against same sex soul bond pairings were gone. The old hang over from same sex bondings not being able to reproduce was no longer valid, so people even encouraged it. And in the wake of V-Day, it wasn’t at all unusual for mates to be decades apart in age.

It wasn’t relevant to Eggsy personally, but it made things easier on those like Roxy and Michelle. After V-Day, Eggsy had gotten Michelle away from Dean and within a week had introduced her to Roxy. They had bonded and Michelle had been voluntarily checked into a rehab facility. She still went to therapy twice a week, never truly over what she had allowed to happen to herself and her son at the hands of Dean Baker.

The Round Table had been fully completed within eighteen months of its decimation during the aggression wave. They had to fill eight seats, having lost Galahad (to Valentine’s bullet), Bors, Tristan, Kay, Lamorak, Bedivere, Gawain, and Arthur (to his own attempt at poisoning Eggsy). Eggsy was offered the place of Galahad and though it pained him, he accepted. Percival, once known to Eggsy only as Perry, was appointed to be the new Arthur, leaving his seat to be filled. It took time but they filled those empty seats. Most of the new knights were like the old but three were more like Eggsy. None of them were quite as far down the social ladder as the former chav but they were nowhere near the landed gentry or nouveau riche of the regular knights.

Eggsy had become close to one of them more than the others, Jackson Devere, appointed to be the knight Tristan. Jackson was from a small town on the English coast and his parents owned a pub. He had a broad Cornwallian accent when he first arrived, now softened (much like Eggsy’s Cockney) to a soft burr.

Jackson had lost his bonded mate to the V-Day wave. The girl had been shopping in London and run over by a bus. Jackson himself was on his Army base, sadly on duty in the armory, and had slaughtered dozens of soldiers with the weapons at his disposal.

Eggsy and Jackson had grown closer over the years and last year, Eggsy had proposed a companionship bonding to the other man. Neither of them were capable of a sexual relationship, being widowers from bonded soulmate relationships, but they could provide each other a deeper relationship than mere friendship could provide. It was a comfort many had sought after the mess that was V-Day.

Jackson had agreed and so the two men signed the paperwork and moved into Eggsy’s house, Jackson having no attachment to his flat. They slept in the same bed, provided human contact to offset the normal touchstarved state of the soul bond widowed, even snogged. Their bodies were physically incapable of more (even with modern sexual aid drugs) but the contact was still pleasurable.

Eggsy thought Harry would approve of Jackson. Merlin and Perry assured him Harry would understand and even encourage the relationship. Harry had lived for so many decades without his mate, he would never want Eggsy to be alone.

 

_February 15, 2015, England  
_

Eggsy sat in the Kingsman infirmary, his suit jacket over the chair by the door. Eggsy was on the bed, waiting to be checked over for broken bones or cracked ribs. The suits might be bulletproof but the impacts still packed a punch. And Eggsy had taken quite a number of hits after the umbrella had failed in Valentine’s underground bunker.

Eggsy was feeling overwhelmed. The last forty-eight hours had been brutal. Getting to spend time having sex with Harry and just learning from him; being unable to shoot JB, not for Arthur, at least (and how was that fair, Roxy was told to shoot her dog by Merlin, someone they knew and trusted. Eggsy got Arthur, someone he had barely met and who he could tell disliked him); the argument with Harry, the harsh words, him tossing Eggsy’s copy of their binding paperwork at his head; watching Harry go mental in the church and then get shot in the head by Richmond Valentine; the confrontation with and subsequent poisoning of Chester King; the infiltration of the mountain bunker with Merlin; the fights in the halls; the worry for Daisy and his mum; giving the order to set off the neck chips; flirting with the Princess; the fight with Gazelle while the world went to shit; impaling Valentine on Gazelle’s leg; more flirting with the Princess and getting his kiss, not like he could actually take her up on her full offer, not after having bonded with Harry; the flight back to Kingsman HQ; finding out that his mother and sister had survived; discovering Harry’s comatose form in the infirmary, having been recovered by American Kingsman agents between the church massacre and the setting off of the wave. They'd been expecting to find his body, but thanks to Valentine's haemophobia as well as Gazelle’s preoccupation with her employer and his reaction, none of them had checked the body, so it evidently _was_ that kind of movie, and the team returning him to England HQ was in the air, no Valentine chips aboard when the wave hit; learning how bad Kingsman had it thanks to Chester King’s sabotage, putting V-chipped phones hidden throughout the complex.

Eggsy was impatient. After he got checked out, he was heading to Harry’s bedside. It wasn’t an unfamiliar position after the idiot got himself blown up when confronting Professor Arnold so many months ago. They had operated on Harry in the last few hours. He would most likely have no sight in his left eye, though the eyeball was still present, but he would live. Valentine was a shit shot, he closed his eyes and turned away before he pulled the trigger, the docs said it looked like Harry took advantage of that stupidity to begin to duck, the bullet struck the side of his glasses’ frames and much of its force was expended there since they were designed to be bullet resistant. The glasses deflected the course of the bullet and it creased his head, making him bleed like a stuck pig and the glasses’ frames fractured and injured his eye, so it appeared to anyone cursorily looking that he had been shot in the head.

Eggsy knew he was greedy but he was so glad that the horrible emptiness he had felt for the last several hours wasn’t something he would have to spend the rest of his life living with. So many people had lost their mates today but Harry wasn’t one of them. He would wake up from his coma and they would have years and years to live together as soulmates.

\--

It had been ten years since V-Day (as it had come to be called). The loss of over nine hundred million people during the wave and a further five hundred million or so afterward to injuries sustained during the wave or to depression and suicide over their actions under the influence of Valentine, was finally being recovered from.

The population hadn’t recovered but, in that way, Valentine had won, had finally gotten the gist of his message across. Overpopulation was hurting the planet. People understood and believed. They hated him for his actions but they understood his motivations. There weren’t _laws_ against large families but most people only had a single child or even none at all. And all of the laws and taboos against same sex soul bond pairings were gone. The old hang over from same sex bondings not being able to reproduce was no longer valid, so people even _encouraged_ it. And in the wake of V-Day, it wasn’t at all unusual for mates to be decades apart in age.

It made things easier for Eggsy and Harry and also for Roxy and Michelle. After V-Day, Eggsy had gotten Michelle away from Dean and within a week had introduced her to Roxy. They had bonded and Michelle had been voluntarily checked into a rehab facility. She still went to therapy twice a week, never truly over what she had allowed to happen to herself and her son at the hands of Dean Baker.

Eggsy himself went to therapy regularly, to deal with his childhood and the things he did as a Kingsman agent. It was actually mandatory; all field agents went to a Kingsman therapist at least monthly.

The Round Table had been fully completed within eighteen months of its decimation during the aggression wave. They had to fill seven seats, having lost Bors, Tristan, Kay, Lamorak, Bedivere, Gawain and Arthur (to his own attempt at poisoning Eggsy). When Harry awoke from his coma eight days after V-Day, he was found to have physical deficits (other than his eye) that would keep him from the field, so he accepted the position of Arthur, leaving his former seat to be filled. He offered it to Eggsy but after a long conversation, they came to a compromise (Eggsy feeling uncomfortable with the idea). Eggsy took on the name of a rarely used position but one appropriate to his actions on V-Day: Mordred, the king’s left hand.

It took time but they filled those empty seats. Most of the new knights were like the old but three were more like Eggsy. None of them were quite as far down the social ladder as the former chav but they were nowhere near the landed gentry or nouveau riche of the regular knights. It was a new day for the new knights. And Harry led them through the new age with aplomb and a gentleman’s manners.

 

\--

 **A/N:** I don't own Clue either. This is a completed work, no sequels at all. But there will eventually be other stories in this soulmate concept. But don't bug me about them. :)


End file.
